Gasoline’s cost dropped to $3.20 per gallon across Nevada last week, an easing of four cents, while Carson City’s lowest pump price was significantly lower on Monday.
Three outlets in Nevada’s capital posted prices of $2.76 per gallon as tracked by GasBuddy.com, the same gas price-monitoring website that released a Sunday survey showing the 1,130 stations tracked all over the Silver State had eased prices to $3.20 on average. The national average price, meanwhile, was said by the same survey website to have eased by 5.4 cents a gallon over a week to reach $2.60 a gallon.
In Carson City, the price was $2.76 a gallon at Costco, 700 Old Clear Creek Road, as well as at JM Gasoline, 1321 N. Carson St., and Eagle Gas, 1360 S. Carson St.
The statewide average price as of Sunday was 57.4 cents a gallon lower than a year ago, according to the website, and the national price was 87.9 cents a gallon lower than on Aug. 9 of 2014.
“The powerful combination of declining crude oil prices and robust production from U.S. refineries continues to pummel retail gasoline prices nationwide,” said Patrick DeHaan, petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. He added the trend is likely to continue.
DeHaan said West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipped to $43.75 per barrel late last week and refineries were exceeding 17 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, noting that represents “a level that hasn’t been reached since the Energy Information Administration began publishing the data in 1990.” He said that explains why the national average price of gasoline shed more than a nickel a gallon last week.
A colleague said even with extraordinary price spikes earlier this summer experienced by Californians, which then inflated the national cost somewhat, improving conditions in California gas pricing were now helping ease the national cost as well. Gregg Lasoski, another Gas Buddy analyst, said California gas dropped 30 cents a gallon from July, when it was $3.90 a gallon, to $3.60 a gallon recently.