The average price of a gallon of self-serve gasoline in San Diego County dropped for the 31st consecutive day Sunday, decreasing 1 cent to $3.009, its lowest amount since Aug. 30, 2017.
The average price is 10.1 cents less than a week ago, 52.4 cents lower than a month ago and 72.3 cents less than one year ago, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service.
It has fallen 58.9 cents since the start of the year.
The sharp increase in oil prices won’t affect gasoline prices in Southern California “for some time,” according to Jeffrey Spring, the Automobile Club of Southern California’s corporate communications manager.
“Although prices jumped in the past three days, they are still about half of what they were at the beginning of the year,” Spring told City News Service. “They jumped on the hope that Russia, Saudi Arabia (and now the U.S.) can agree on production cuts. If they can’t in the next few days, prices may drop again.
“Demand is still very weak. OPIS is estimating that demand in the Western U.S. has been nearly halved compared to this time last year. As long as production is decreasing and inventories are increasing, I think we’ll see these low prices at least for the next few weeks.”
U.S. crude oil closed up $3.68, or 14.5%, to $29 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, one day after increasing $5.01, 25%, to $25.32 a barrel, its sharpest percentage gain on record, according to a Dow Jones Market Data analysis of figures going back to 1983.