Falling stocks could deliver cheaper gas

This week's scary stock market plunge has a silver lining: Gasoline is about to get cheaper.

That's because the same fears that forced a sell-off on Wall Street also brought down the price of oil.

Gas prices usually fall in late summer as families take fewer road trips. But the recent drop in oil should lower them more. Forecasters say the national average of $3.70 per gallon could fall as much as 35 cents per gallon over the next month.

On Friday, the average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline on Long Island was $4.057, roughly a half-cent down from the day before, according to AAA.

American motorists consume roughly 378 million gallons of gasoline per day, so a 35-cent-per-gallon fall would reduce daily gas spending by about $132.3 million.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude has declined $12.71, about 13 percent, in the past 10 days. A drop in oil on Thursday outpaced a similar tumble in stocks, losing nearly 6 percent, its biggest one-day decline in three months.

Oil ended the week at $86.88 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an $8.82 drop from the week before. -- AP