Even though there was a slight firming in wholesale prices today,
the short-term trend is down, down, down for gasoline and diesel
through Tuesday. To put things in perspective, gas prices in San
Diego have dropped one dollar and 8 cents in the last month at a
rate of 3.5 cents per day on average. This is the fastest decrease
in over 60 years, and probably the largest price cut in the last
100 years. If this trend continues for another 30-days (unlikely)
gas will cost 99 cents a gallon by December 22.
We will be watching closely next week to see if prices will reverse
themselves after the Wednesday DOE inventory reports. If the reports
are consistent with the last few months, we will see a continued build
in diesel and gasoline inventories due to slack business and consumer
demand.
The current average price for regular gasoline (Friday, November 21, 2008)
is $2.22 a gallon - down three cents overnight and almost 20 cents
since last Friday.