AAA says gasoline is less than it was a year ago at this time.
Towsen, Md (KM). There’s some good news if you plan to travel by car to your summer vacation destination. AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Christine Delise says the price of gasoline has been dropping over the past few weeks. “A little bit of an uptick around the {Memorial Day} holiday. But it seemed like gasoline demand tapered off after the holiday,” she says.
AAA says the average price in Maryland this week ins $2.28 per gallon, a decrease of 4-cents from a week ago. It’s also 5-cents less from last year at this time.
“After rising leading up to the Memorial Day weekend, this month June, we’ve seen prices trending downward. And right now, they’re currently below last year’s averages, which is good news with the July 4th Holiday a little over a week away,” says Delise.
Delise says a lot of it has to do with crude oil prices, which have been low for 2017, and at a level not seen in seven months. As of Tuesday, AAA says the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil currently stands at $43.20 per barrel.
The price of crude oil nationally last year was between $40 and $55 per barrel, and that’s down from $110 per barrel the year before.
But, Delise says, that could change with Tropical Storm Cindy pounding states along the Gulf Coast, especially Louisiana and Texas, where a lot of crude oil is refined. “The LOOP, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which is a crude logistics company, they’re offloading operations were suspended. They’re involved in a lot of offloading of foreign crude oil from tankers, and storing it,” she says.
In addition; traffic has come to a halt along a major shipping channel along the Gulf Coast. “Shipping traffic near the mouth of the Mississippi River was halted on Tuesday in preparation for the storm. That is expected to affect refineries in the New Orleans’ area,” says Delise.
But there is some good news. “We have ample supply of oil and gasoline so we don’t really expect too much of a disruption right now,” she says.
By Kevin McManus