Local gas prices in line
with state average
Published Thursday, January 11, 2007
With a mild winter, the off-season for driving and relative calm in world events, gas prices are dropping to prices not seen since 2005.
Minneapolis-St. Paul was seeing prices under $2 per gallon of unleaded gasoline at some stations Thursday. The last time that happened was June of 2005, and drivers aren’t complaining.
“It’s that psychological thing, that ‘oh my God, it’s got a one in front,’” Dawn Duffy, spokesperson for the AAA Minneapolis Club, said.
In fact, the Twin Cities have the third-lowest gas prices in the nation among metro areas, at an average of $2.01, according to GasBuddy.com, a site where users report local gas prices. Fergus Falls was in keeping with Minnesota’s average price of $2.11 a gallon of unleaded. Earlier this week, prices were at $2.13 per gallon.
AAA reported the national average for unleaded was $2.28 per gallon Thursday, a 1-cent decrease from last month and a 4-cent drop from the same time last year. Crude oil is sitting at around $54 per barrel, Duffy said.
Users reporting to the site MinnesotaGasPrices.com say that stations in Glencoe and Coates had unleaded gas for $1.97 per gallon Thursday, while stations in Proctor and Duluth were seeing $2.25.
But Minnesota is the fifth-cheapest state in the union, according to GasBuddy.com, and Duffy said the trend is a continued decline in price. She pointed to the slow demand period between Christmas and spring break in March, less terrorism and no natural disasters to disrupt reserves. There was also less demand for home heating oil because of a mild winter.
“I think they’re slowly going down,” she said.
The lower Midwest — Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma — as well as South Carolina have been having the best luck with gas prices, with averages there hovering around $2.05, according to GasBuddy.com. The West Coast has been seeing the highest prices, with some counties in California and Washington at $2.94 per gallon, and Hawaii over $3.
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