BUFFALO, N.Y. — Analysts at GasBuddy say gasoline consumption has dropped by 50 to 70 percent with relatively few people actually filling up their tanks in these days of "stay at home." And with the worldwide oil glut and consumption levels dropping to levels not seen since 1995, those pump prices will be falling even more-so.
GasBuddy Chief Petroleum Analyst Patrick De Haan says it's no wonder it's happening, "Crude oil prices...one type of crude oil for main delivery going negative...something that we've never seen before."
While the national average price is $1.81 per gallon, we are still generally at $2.25 per gallon here in Western New York. 65 cents of that is our state and federal taxes. And Elizabeth Carey of AAA of Western New York says some stations may be trying to cover their lower margin from lower sales.
Carey explained it this way, "If a gas station bought their supply of gas at a certain price they're gonna want to sell it at that price so they don't lose money. With less people driving it's gonna take longer to deplete that reservoir of gas that they have at each gas station."
Carey adds that gas prices may slowly rise as people go back to work but that may take some time.
"There's still a big damper on the economy and the travel economy with less people flying, less people taking road trips and that sort of thing," Carey said. "So it's gonna take a while to get back to the levels where we were."
OPEC will cut its supplies by May first to reduce some of the global supply. But De Haan say this summer driving season, when prices normally climb by Memorial Day, may be quite different this year. And he feels Western New York will follow the trend.
"Gas prices in all 50 states will go down," De Haan said. "Some states will finish that race sooner and get to the bottom. But other places will be catching up and I would expect Buffalo to be one of those areas that sees a pretty nice decline of another 20 to 40 cents a gallon over the next month or two."
And naturally the reservation stations and some in the Southern Tier are already close to the $1 mark or even lower as we've seen in some cases.
