Holiday gas lowest since 2008

“Drivers across the country are celebrating the historic return of cheaper gas prices”, Marshall Doney, AAA’s president and CEO said in a statement.

That’s how much consumers will save during their year-end travels compared with a year ago, according to GasBuddy Organization, a price tracker based in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

In the Kansas City area, pump prices are about 25 cents below the national average. And fuel prices are below $2 in about 70 percent of the gas stations across the country – the lowest they’ve been since the depths of the financial crisis nearly seven years ago. It’s expected that this increase will be temporary and the prices will eventually decrease as we head into the new year.

Most people will travel by vehicle over the next two weeks, and they’ll hit the road with cheaper fills in their gas tanks and a chance to crack the windows.

AAA’s December 21 survey of prices in MA found self-serve, regular averaging $2 per gallon, four cents less than last week.

Kloza said gasoline prices are high in comparison to crude prices because some traders expected greater demand this December after a strong driving season, but he expects prices to drop even more. The highest national average ever was $4.11 per gallon on July 17, 2008. This year’s crash in oil prices has brought down the price of gasoline as well.

In the long run Dehaan says that continuously low oil prices could force oil companies to make cuts in production to maintain their bottom line, a price that could get passed back to the consumer. Through October, which is the most recent data available, Americans have driven more than 2.63 trillion miles for the year, which is a 3.4 percent increase over the same period in 2014.