tigerhonaker
09-26-2006, 11:31 PM
LI gas prices continue decline
Prices at the pump have fallen nearly 60 cents in a month and experts expect further drops in next 6 weeks
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN
Newsday Staff Writer
September 26, 2006
The price of self-serve regular gasoline on Long Island dropped sharply again in the past week, averaging $2.556 a gallon, a 14-cent decline, as demand continued to cool with the end of the summer driving season, the New York Auto Club and energy experts said yesterday.
Gas prices have declined on the Island almost 60 cents in the past month, when regular sold for $3.129, according to the American Automobile Association's daily survey.
In New York City, motorists were paying $2.679, about 52 cents less than a month ago.
Gas has plunged as crude oil prices have fallen more than 20 percent since July 14, when they hit a record of $78.40. Crude for November delivery touched a six-month low of $59.52 a barrel in early trading yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling at $61.45 a barrel by the end of the trading day.
"Demand has dropped appreciably since Labor Day," said Robert Sinclair Jr., a spokesman for the AAA in Garden City. "We think it will keep going lower until early November, maybe even as late as Thanksgiving, as long as we have a mild winter."
An early cold snap would mean more crude would go toward home-heating oil, instead of being converted to gasoline, tightening supplies and putting upward pressure on gas prices. Nationally, the average price for unleaded gas is now $2.384 a gallon, about 17 percent lower than a month ago.
Although experts said cooling demand was largely responsible for the recent price drops, there was other good news for consumers.
BP Plc said it may be able to restore most of the production at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska within the next week. And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an interview in The Washington Post over the weekend, said Iran favors talks on the country's nuclear program, a statement that may go a long way toward defusing a potential confrontation with a nation that holds the world's second-largest oil reserves.
Mark Routt, a senior consultant for Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Mass., said the price drops were "very much expected."
Demand, while still rising, has not been rising as rapidly in the past few months, and refiners in the Gulf of Mexico states that were hurt by last year's hurricanes have been able to repair facilities more rapidly, Routt said.
The price of self-serve regular gas could fall as low as $2.25 across the country in the next four to six weeks, he said.
"At the wholesale level we're about where we're going to be," Routt said. "But at retail we're not quite there yet. Retailers are still being squeezed."
There also was good news from the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a group founded by former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani. In its monthly written report, the group said "Further declines in the price are likely unless OPEC somehow manages to reduce its output."
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzoil4906825sep26,0,7250265.story?coll=ny-business-print
Prices at the pump have fallen nearly 60 cents in a month and experts expect further drops in next 6 weeks
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN
Newsday Staff Writer
September 26, 2006
The price of self-serve regular gasoline on Long Island dropped sharply again in the past week, averaging $2.556 a gallon, a 14-cent decline, as demand continued to cool with the end of the summer driving season, the New York Auto Club and energy experts said yesterday.
Gas prices have declined on the Island almost 60 cents in the past month, when regular sold for $3.129, according to the American Automobile Association's daily survey.
In New York City, motorists were paying $2.679, about 52 cents less than a month ago.
Gas has plunged as crude oil prices have fallen more than 20 percent since July 14, when they hit a record of $78.40. Crude for November delivery touched a six-month low of $59.52 a barrel in early trading yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling at $61.45 a barrel by the end of the trading day.
"Demand has dropped appreciably since Labor Day," said Robert Sinclair Jr., a spokesman for the AAA in Garden City. "We think it will keep going lower until early November, maybe even as late as Thanksgiving, as long as we have a mild winter."
An early cold snap would mean more crude would go toward home-heating oil, instead of being converted to gasoline, tightening supplies and putting upward pressure on gas prices. Nationally, the average price for unleaded gas is now $2.384 a gallon, about 17 percent lower than a month ago.
Although experts said cooling demand was largely responsible for the recent price drops, there was other good news for consumers.
BP Plc said it may be able to restore most of the production at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska within the next week. And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an interview in The Washington Post over the weekend, said Iran favors talks on the country's nuclear program, a statement that may go a long way toward defusing a potential confrontation with a nation that holds the world's second-largest oil reserves.
Mark Routt, a senior consultant for Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Mass., said the price drops were "very much expected."
Demand, while still rising, has not been rising as rapidly in the past few months, and refiners in the Gulf of Mexico states that were hurt by last year's hurricanes have been able to repair facilities more rapidly, Routt said.
The price of self-serve regular gas could fall as low as $2.25 across the country in the next four to six weeks, he said.
"At the wholesale level we're about where we're going to be," Routt said. "But at retail we're not quite there yet. Retailers are still being squeezed."
There also was good news from the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a group founded by former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani. In its monthly written report, the group said "Further declines in the price are likely unless OPEC somehow manages to reduce its output."
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzoil4906825sep26,0,7250265.story?coll=ny-business-print