Bay State gas prices continued their downward slide yesterday, falling 8 cents over the last week — a trend that's expected to continue throughout the holiday season and could help fuel Christmas shopping — but look for the price plunge to end early next year, experts said.
The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Massachusetts was $2.80, down 63.7 cents from last year's average of $3.44, while the national average was $2.65, down 10 cents from last week and 61 cents from a year ago, according to GasBuddy.com, which tracks gas prices nationwide.
"This (continued decline) has been extraordinary," said Gregg Laskoski, a senior patroleum analyst at the website. "Nobody could have expected crude oil prices to drop this much when it was selling for more than $100 a barrel over the summer and now it's down to $63.14."
The main reasons for the decline have been that the U.S. this year became the world's largest oil producer, due largely to fracking, and globally, production has exceeded demand, which tends to be lower during the winter because people generally travel less, Laskoski said.
Since Thanksgiving Day, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced it was not cutting production, the price of crude oil has dropped by $10 per barrel, he said.
"It's a price war between OPEC and the U.S.," Laskoski said. "As a result, we're seeing lower crude oil prices and lower wholesale and retail prices of gasoline."
Winter-blend gas also is cheaper than summer-blend gas because it doesn't contain the additives the latter does to make the fuel burn cleaner and reduce pollution, as mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency, he said.
The continuing drop in price could give a needed boost to the economy during the holiday shopping season, said Mary Maguire, director of public and government affairs for AAA Southern New England.
"The less money people are putting into the gas tank, the more they have to spend on other things," Maguire said. "They're also more likely to travel. So there is a tremendous ripple effect."
The price of gas is likely to continue to fall, although not necessarily as precipitously as it has in the last two to three months, before it begins to inch back up, most likely in the first quarter of next year, Laskoski said.
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