Gasoline prices dip 6.6 cents on Long Island
Although gasoline prices have fallen in the past week, analysts say further declines will be modest. Credit: AP, 2011
Gasoline prices fell by another 6.6 cents a gallon on Long Island in the past week, but some experts are warning consumers not to expect much more relief at the pumps.
As if in support of that viewpoint, gas and crude oil futures rose Wednesday in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, amid some positive economic news and a government report showing lower crude oil and gasoline inventories.
Regular gasoline averaged $3.763 Wednesday in Nassau and Suffolk, the AAA said, down 22.2 cents from a month earlier and 52 cents from the most recent peak on May 12.
Sander Cohan, gasoline analyst for the Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Mass., thinks further declines will be modest because falling supply is matching lower demand. The U.S. Department of Energy said the nation's gasoline stockpiles fell by about 3 percent last week from a year earlier, to 213.7 million barrels, while MasterCard Advisors said U.S. demand last week declined by about the same amount. "I see a little more room for prices to decline but not much more," said Cohan.
Wednesday, longislandgas prices.com, which is based on motorist reports, posted prices for regular as low as $3.49 a gallon at two stations in Bay Shore and two in West Babylon and as high as $4.19 a gallon at a station in Shirley.
The new average for regular is 88 cents higher than a year earlier, even though U.S. benchmark grade crude oil is about $3 cheaper than a year ago -- settling Wednesday at $79.68 a barrel.
Cohan says that's because, especially on the East Coast, much of the gasoline at local stations is refined either in this country or abroad from more expensive West African or European crude oil, whose prices are about $20 a barrel higher than last year's at about $103.
Experts had forecast price declines after Labor Day, but some, including Cohan, last week also expressed concern about plans to sell or shut down three Philadelphia-area refineries that account for about half the East Coast's capacity.
The price of heating oil on Long Island also fell in the past week to an average of $3.887 a gallon on Monday at full-service dealers, according to the state Energy Research and Development Authority.
Natural gas futures fell by seven cents Wednesday, to $3.57 per 1 million Btu, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Market prices don't immediately affect customers' bills because half of what National Grid sells is at hedged prices or from storage, while the remaining 50 percent reflects prices paid during the last week of the previous month.
