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Santa has an early Christmas gift for New Jersey drivers: Gas prices below $3 a gallon.
More than a dozen gas stations in the Garden State have had their retail prices for regular gasoline dip to $2.999 or under, as was reported by philly.com.
A ride to Lakewood in Ocean County will earn you the chance to fill up at Delta for $2.95 a gallon, the lowest price in the state. No fewer than 14 stations are charging $2.97 a gallon for regular, eight of which are located in Edison, gasbuddy.com posted.
New Jersey, which has an average retail price of $3.14 a gallon, is able to charge less for gas than neighbors New York and Pennsylvania because it has lower gas taxes. The average price for regular in Pennsylvania is $3.34, while New Yorkers pay an average of $3.56, according to NewYorkGasPrices.com.
The state with the lowest average price is New Mexico at $2.988, the only average in the nation below $3. The national average, meanwhile, is $3.29 per gallon, as was reported by the Gloucester County Times on nj.com.
While prices have been dropping lately, with the average price in New Jersey falling 2.8 cents per gallon in the past week and 12.3 cents in the last month, gas is costlier than it was at this time a year ago. As of Dec. 4, the state’s retail price for gas was 26.7 cents a gallon higher than it was on the same day in 2010.
Mapquest.com posted the lowest price in the country as $2.09 a gallon in Houston, followed by $2.59 in New Orleans and Thomaston, Ga.
The national average, down 13.9 cents a gallon from a month ago, is still 35.5 cents a gallon higher than it was this time last year.
GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst Patrick DeHaan told nj.com he feels the current downward trend might be temporary.
"Even as oil and gasoline futures rallied after strong Black Friday sales reports and a drop in unemployment, retail gasoline prices have mover lower," he said. "I have a suspicion that as we near 2012, we may see retail prices climb slightly higher again on upbeat holiday spending, which is indicative of a healthier economy.
“If we remember back to last year, positive holiday sales also led to higher gasoline prices as Christmas approached, which may play out again this year.”
—JOE GREENE, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
