Don’t be shocked if you soon see a rare sight while driving around the South Bay: tumbling gas prices that experts predict could fall to $3.50 by the end of the month because of the recent drop in oil.
The price of oil has dipped 9.2 percent in the past week, a silver lining in the scary stock market plunge that has some economists fearing a double-dip recession.
Even if you do lose in your investments, you’ll save a few bucks on your weekly commute bill, and maybe even more if you hold off on that planned road trip. Forecasters say the national average for a gallon of gas could fall as much as 35 cents in the next month, which would save you $4.20 in filling a 12-gallon tank.
That will be welcome news for the Bay Area, which regularly features some of the highest gas prices in the nation.
“We all could use it,” said Melanie Gurunathan, who is buying an all-electric Nissan Leaf partly because she is so fed up with paying for expensive gas for her commute from Palo Alto to Milpitas. “Gas is a huge part of your weekly expenses.”
In San Jose, the average price of a regular gallon of gas hasn’t changed by more than a few pennies in the past month and remained flat Friday at $3.82, according to AAA’s survey of gas stations. But drivers have been digging deeper time and again over the past two years to fill up their tanks, with the average gallon of gas soaring 64 cents just in the past year.
Motorists may remember a more dramatic plunge around the height of the Great Recession a few years ago. In the Bay Area, prices that had hit $4 per gallon eventually dropped to around $2 as fewer people were driving to work.
Lower gas prices typically open the door for cheaper food and other goods that are transported by fuel-guzzling trucks.
“They’ll see a penny or two drop per day next week,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, a consumer website that tracks retail gasoline prices around the country.
DeHaan said the decline will likely start at stations along highways and other busy areas. Those stations need to replenish their storage tanks every day or so, and they’ll get the cheaper gasoline faster than others.
Of course, an unexpected surge in oil prices could drive gas prices higher again. But traders say it would take a calamity like a hurricane in the crude-producing waters of the Gulf of Mexico to really boost oil markets now.
Associated Press writer Chris Kahn contributed to this report.
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705.
by the numbers
Forecasters say the national average for a gallon of gas could fall in the next month.
The decrease in cost per gallon:
35 cents
The savings on a 12-gallon tank:
$4.20
