Today’s fuel price musings - Back below $3.50 a gallon

1 comment October 8th, 2008

Prices in Rockford fell below $3.50 a gallon today for the first time since April, already making AAA’s numbers below obsolete (AAA gets the prices from the last credit card swipe at stations the day before). This should send the metro area average below $3.50 in tomorrow’s data.

The next milestone to watch is $3.46, which was the record from May, 2007, that lasted until the runup this spring. Then there’s $3.25, which is currently the bottom that most analysts predict. Finally, there’s $3.02 (the lowest mark of this year, from back in February) and of course $3.

I got an email today from a reader who notes gas is under $3 in a community in Minnesota. You’re going to see that in places, because of lower taxes, supply costs and costs of doing business. But this morning, only four of the 270 metro areas are averaging below $3, all in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. A few more will follow suit, but it’ll take more economic bad news to really send prices lower. And at that point, we’ll have other problems.

Rockford, by the way, ranks 72nd out of the nation’s 270 metro areas in gasoline prices.

Here are the prices (as always, courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):Gasoline: Rockford dropped almost three cents to $3.54 a gallon. We have the third-highest gas prices in the state. The Illinois average dropped more than three cents to $3.61. The national average dropped more than three cents to $3.44. Illinois has the seventh-highest gas prices in the nation.

Diesel: Rockford dropped four cents to $3.95 a gallon. We’re tied with the seventh-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average dropped a cent to $4.11. The national average dropped two cents to $3.99. Illinois the sixth-highest prices in the country.