AAA: State Gas Prices Fall For 15th Consecutive Day

Daytona Beach, FL – A new AAA report says Florida’s gas prices fell another four cents from last week, which means prices in the state have now dropped for 15 days straight. That also means that drivers are paying the lowest gas prices since late July. Currently, the state’s average is hovering around $2.09 per gallon. Additionally, on average, drivers are paying 36 cents per gallon less than this time last year. Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) revised its global oil demand forecast for 2020. Before the pandemic, the IEA set global demand expectations at 101 million barrels a day. However, the forecast is now down to 91.9 million barrels per day and the IEA cites COVID-19 as the culprit, causing reductions in road and air travel. In their report, they suggest that business travel will remain severely curtailed until a vaccine is found, while leisure travel will mainly be limited to domestic trips and short-haul flights; crimping the demand for jet fuel.  "Gas prices are drifting lower, reaching the low $2.00-range in many markets," said Mark Jenkins, spokesperson for AAA. "Prices are declining as concerns about elevated cases of COVID-19 continue to dampen expectations for fuel demand." "The current outlook has prevented crude oil prices from gaining any significant ground, thus keeping gas prices low," added Jenkins. Crude oil prices are still hovering around $41-$42 per barrel. On Friday (August 14th), the price for US crude oil settled at $42.01 per barrel, which is 79 cents more than the week prior. Locally, Volusia County drivers are seeing averages hovering around $2.09 per gallon (regular unleaded), while average prices from last week hovered around $2.13. Flagler drivers are seeing a higher average price than Volusia with an average of $2.11 per gallon. The West Palm Beach-Boca Raton area saw some of the highest averages as of Monday (August 17th) with prices hovering around $2.22 a gallon. Punta Gorda had the lowest with $1.99. The national average currently sits at $2.17.