Gasoline Prices Continue to Fall, But How Much Longer?

Prices still moving downward...a bit slowly, but downward. Crude oil still above $70, so expect that cost to show up at the pumps eventually.

Photo by: Bonnie King

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Gasoline prices continue their downward trend, with the national average for a gallon of regular at $2.83, four and one-half cents lower than a week ago. In Oregon, the decline was less than four cents per gallon to $2.86. Only seven states, including California, Montana, and North Dakota, still have average prices above $3 per gallon.

Portland is Oregon’s price leader with a gallon of regular going for $2.79. Salem’s current cost for regular is $2.81. Drivers in the Medford/Ashland area are paying $2.82, Eugene/Springfield’s average is $2.84. Vancouver area residents are paying $2.89. "Motorists should be feeling much better when refueling, and we expect prices will dip further during the month of August. Consumers, however, must remember that crude oil is still selling at more than $70 per barrel, and that cost eventually will show up at the pumps," said AAA Oregon Public Affairs Director Elliott Eki.

"Refiners already are preparing to transition from summer grade to winter grade fuels which, typically, pushes retail prices lower. But, the high price of crude oil makes it difficult to predict how gasoline prices will be affected in September and the remainder of the year." Oregon's current statewide average price is the lowest it's been since late March, more than 55-cents lower than the record high set on May 18th and 13-cents lower than one year ago. In the Medford-Ashland metropolitan area, the average price dropped 22-cents in the past month and currently is 69-cents lower than the record high average price set in mid-May. At $2.86, Oregon's average gasoline price ranks 25th lowest in the nation. Hawaii has the highest statewide average price at $3.27; in the contiguous U.S., Connecticut and New York are highest at $3.06, and South Carolina is lowest at $2.63.

California's statewide average price dropped six cents to $3.01, and Washington's is down to $2.93. Idaho's average price fell to $2.97, and Nevada's is down to $2.91. The national average diesel price inched up to $2.96 per gallon. In California, diesel averages $3.22 per gallon; in Washington it's up to $3.20, in Idaho it's $3.07, and in Nevada it's $3.08. Oregon's average diesel price jumped up a nickel to $3.08.

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Big Oil merely responded to the outcry and outrage at prices over $3 (apparently a magic number in many minds) while the companies posted multi-hundred-billion dollar profit margins. Every year they jack up the price almost a dollar a gallon, the public shrieks, the companies 'drop' the prices about 60 cents (leaving them 40 cents higher than before the hikes) and the gas-addicted Sheeple breathe easier at the 'relief from high gas prices'. Maybe the gas fumes makes them abnormally stupid, I don't know. But next year in the winter and spring we will see gas topping $4 a gallon and after the 'drop' it will be around $3.35-$3.50 a gallon and the ignorant masses will continue lining up at the pumps joyously filling up their gas guzzlers. Proof that, if nothing else, civilization has completely removed intelligence as a survival trait.

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