For the expected 42 million United States residents that will be taking a road trip for Thanksgiving, here's something to be thankful for: unleaded gasoline's average price is expected to fall below $2 per gallon on Nov. 26, according to analysts from GasBuddy.com.
The expected figure is the lowest for Thanksgiving since 2004, according to Oil Price Information Service energy analysis global head Tom Kloza.
The average price for unleaded gasoline as of Nov. 23 is at $2.072, said Kloza, with almost 60 percent of all the gas stations in the United States already posting prices of below $2 per gallon. However, the per-gallon price is continuing to fall.
In fact, the average gasoline price has been falling for 17 straight days. The current price is 75 cents lower compared to the average gasoline price recorded in the same day last year.
"We had lower prices in 2008 and 2009, but not for Thanksgiving," Kloza noted, adding that the cheapest markets for gasoline at in the Great Lakes states.
Kloza said that the typical driver in the United States will see savings of about $75 in gas expenses in the 40-day period leading up to Christmas.
According to GasBuddy, some of the lowest per-gallon prices across the Midwest include $1.803 in Indiana, $1.804 in Ohio and $1.860 in Missouri. Car owners from the South are also reporting low gasoline prices, including $1.881 in Arkansas, $1.877 in Louisiana, $1.841 in Alabama and South Carolina, and $1.855 in Mississippi and Texas.
On the other hand, the highest average gasoline prices in the country are in Hawaii at $2.83, California at $2.73 and Nevada at $2.59.
While lower gas prices are great news for consumers, the same cannot be said for energy producers, with the energy industry globally facing a critical surplus in the production of oil. This has led to the laying off of thousands of workers and reduction of investments for many oil producers.
Producers in the United States, however, have continued to pump oil even as the OPEC, or Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has maintained a high rate of production, leading to lower gasoline prices.
