AAA reports LI gas prices down, a little

Gasoline prices fell just slightly on Long Island in the past week, with regular averaging $3.967 a gallon -- still more than $1 a gallon higher than a year ago, the AAA said.

Home heating oil also fell, by a fraction of a cent, in the week ended Monday, to an average of $3.987 a gallon at full-service dealers on Long Island, the state Energy Research and Development Authority said. Oil is almost $1 a gallon costlier than last year at this time.

Experts think gasoline prices will fall more in coming weeks but are making no promises about heating oil, whose price is closely tied to world demand for diesel fuel, a nearly identical product. "I don't think we're going to get a lot of relief there," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.

Gasoline and U.S. crude oil futures were down in New York trading Wednesday after a federal government report showed that gasoline imports increased and fuels stocks rose last week, while, separately, the U.S. Commerce Department reported no growth in retail sales in August over July. U.S. crude settled at $88.91 a barrel. But benchmark European Brent crude oil, from which much of the gasoline imported to the U.S. and refined on the East Coast is produced, rose to settle at $112.40 a barrel in London.

Citing that, Carl Larry, director of energy derivatives and research at Blue Ocean Brokerage Llc in Manhattan, said prices at U.S. gasoline pumps were unlikely to drop by more than a dime a gallon in coming weeks. "We're not promising the world here but we are promising some relief," he said.

Meanwhile, American drivers continued last week to conserve; a weekly report from MasterCard Advisors said stations sold 3.5 percent less gasoline than in the same period last year. That was the 25th week in a row of year-to-year declines, MasterCard economic research analyst John Gamel said in a statement, "Consumers and businesses continue to find ways to reduce their consumption of gasoline, including driving more fuel-efficient vehicles, driving more fuel efficiently . . . as well as limiting and combining discretionary driving trips."

Experts say prices usually decline after Labor Day weekend, with the end of vacation season and the lifting of clean-air requirements for more-expensive-to-produce summer gasoline.

The average for regular gas on Long Island hit a recent high of $4.284 on May 12, which was just 6.2 cents shy of the record of $4.346, set July 8, 2008.

With Bloomberg News Service