Today’s fuel price musings - The complainers ain’t gonna like this

Add comment December 15th, 2008

Gas prices in the Rockford area have fallen below much of the rest of the state (and Wisconsin, to boot) and we’re almost in the middle of the country’s metro areas. We’re below the national average, even (and my old town in Indiana surprised me by having prices higher than here).

Too bad there are signs things are bottoming out. Gas prices rose nationally this weekend for the first time in 86 days. OPEC is ready to announce a big production cut, they say. We’ll see what happens, but I wouldn’t expect prices to drop once more.

See how gas prices have fallen with oil, so if oil rises, expect gas prices to do the same:

Here are the prices (courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):

Gasoline: Rockford dropped half a cent to $1.64 a gallon, after a brief uptick over the weekend. We have the NINTH-highest gas prices in the state (Only Decatur and Springfield are below us). We’re down to 118th of the nation’s 250 metro areas. The Illinois average rose a cent to $1.70. The national average dropped a fraction of a cent to $1.66. Illinois has the 20th-highest gas prices in the nation, including the District of Columbia. Only Alaska and Hawaii remain above $2 a gallon.

Diesel: Rockford dropped two cents to $2.65 a gallon. We have the third-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average dropped three cents to $2.64. The national average dropped more than a cent to $2.54. Illinois has the 13th-highest diesel prices in the country. Only Alaska, Hawaii and New York remain above $3 a gallon (Hawaii is still above $4).