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The good news is gas prices in the US continue to fall as we are into the second week of November. They are now at the lowest price in about ten months. Pulling into a gas station now will cost a driver $2.20 on the average for regular.
In some parts of the US lucky consumers can purchase a gallon of gas for under the $2.00 mark. Most of this year the price of gas rose, sometimes daily, to a high of $3.00 a gallon
Prices at the pumps are down less than they were a year ago, and almost $1.00 less than they were during the summer months. Gasoline prices are most expensive in Hawaii this week with a gallon of regular averaging 2.97, and lowest in New Jersey at just 2.00 a gallon.
Oil was priced at 58.93 a barrel today, but we can look at that to go up if OPEC cuts its production by 1.2 million barrels a day effective November 1. The organization may decide to cut production down further, we will find out after their next meeting which is scheduled for December.
Right now the supply is great and the effects of the production cuts have not been felt yet. It remains to be seen how quickly the cuts will be felt if OPEC cuts production any further.
Consumers have had a tough time at the pump since the hurricane season of 2005, when refineries and pipelines were devastated. They are recovering, but since they lie in hurricane alley, there was great fear the damage would be repeated during the 2006 season. This, as we know, did not happen. I bet we will all be watching the weather summer.
For right now we can forget about the gas prices of the summer, and breathe a little easier when we pull into the gas station, but for how long? We will have to wait until December to hear if there will be another production cut, and if so, we may see the prices begin to go up again.