STORY:
Gas Prices Fall After Y2K

Gas prices head down with Y2K fears long gone

Next time you fill up your car with gas check out the price at the pump it should be lower than it was a month ago. You may not have known this, but Y2K fears were keeping gas prices inflated.

With the New Year over and Y2K fears long gone its time to make adjustments. One of the first places you will see a difference is when you fill up your tank. Gasoline pump prices fell more than a half-cent per gallon in the past three weeks as Y2K panic failed to materialize.

Prices were kept high for fear that people nervous about Y2K would hoard gasoline. That didn’t happen, there was no panic buying. Tanks were not drained of gasoline and there was no shortage in product. Instead, it was business as usual and now that we are three weeks into the New Year the industry is ready to bring prices back down.

Prices nationwide fell .68 cents to a weighted average of $1.3344 per gallon on Friday, according to the Lundberg Survey of 10,000 stations. The price was about 30 cents per gallon higher than the average for the same period last year.

There is a second reason for the drop in gasoline prices- a continuing slump in crude oil prices. Oil prices dripped $1.20 a barrel to $24.22. This happened because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) increased production of oil.

According to the survey, the average price per gallon for self-service gas on Friday was $1.28 for regular grade, $1.38 for mid-grade and $1.46 for premium. Full-service prices were $1.62 for regular, $1.71 for mid-grade and $1.78 for premium.

Source: Associated Press

DATE: 1/17/2000

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