The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is forecast to average $2.27 over the Fourth of July holiday, its lowest level in more than 10 years. Last year a gallon of gas cost $2.77 on July 4 and two years ago the price was a whopping $3.66 a gallon.
In 7 of the last 10 years the national average price on July 5 was lower than during the prior week according to analysts at GasBuddy.
Even better news for motorists is a longer range forecast from GasBuddy that gas prices will dip below $2 a gallon again as soon as November. The expected price drop is due to lower demand and the return to retail outlets of cheaper winter grade gasoline.
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We noted yesterday that for the second week in a row gas prices have continued to drop sharply in the Midwest as more gasoline is being produced at the region’s refineries after outages earlier this year. The average price for a gallon of gas fell 40 cents in Indiana, week over week, and declined 39 cents in Ohio and 32 cents in Michigan.
The five states with the lowest average prices today are South Carolina ($1.984), Oklahoma ($2.043), Mississippi ($2.045), Arkansas ($2.066), and Alabama ($2.079). There are just 7 states where gas prices exceed $2.50, led by California ($2.904), Hawaii ($2.777), Washington ($2.645), Alaska ($2.616) and Nevada ($2.554). Washington, D.C. and Oregon are the other two.
The most common price remains $2.199, and the average difference between the highest 5% of prices and the lowest 5% prices is $1.133. One year ago, a gallon of regular gas averaged $2.783 in the United States.
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