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Victoria, Texas, Gas Prices Drop By 8 Cents a Gallon in 2-Week Span

Posted on: Tuesday, 26 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 25--The price for regular gasoline in Victoria fell eight cents over the last two weeks, slowly fading back from a record-tying $2.199 per gallon, fuel retailers said.

The $2.119 price advertised at most Victoria fuel stations on Monday means the cost to fill up a 15-gallon tank fell by $1.20 to $31.79. Diesel drivers saw prices fall from a high of $2.399 per gallon to $2.299 over the last two weeks, or a drop of $1.50 for a 15-gallon tank to $34.49.

Gasoline prices could come down another five cents based on Monday's wholesale markets, said Henry Luddeke, wholesale manager with Western Petroleum, who keeps his office in Cuero.

Such a move would bring the street price down to $2.069 per gallon, Luddeke said. That would bring the price of a 15-gallon tank of gasoline down another 75 cents.

However, another analyst disagreed.

The present trends in the wholesale gasoline market indicate local prices could increase by a few cents over the course of the week, said Mike Burdette, a senior analyst also with the Energy Information Administration in Washington, D.C.

Both Luddeke and the EIA agreed as to what caused the most recent high prices.

"The storms had everything hyped up," Luddeke explained, referring to the latest wave of tropical storms. "None of them hit anything very significant, so (the price is) back down."

The high price also cut back on demand, and thus market forces corrected the price, he said.

Crude oil prices dropped as the immediate storm threats passed, explained Doug MacIntyre, a senior oil market analyst with the Energy Information Administration, and as a result fuel prices fell.

Barring any sort of supply disruption such as a storm, "our forecast is that prices will go up slightly between now and December," MacIntyre said. If supplies of petroleum products don't hit shortages for the first part of the winter, prices may then start to slide back down, he said.

As of Monday, Dallas had the highest average price for regular gasoline among the major cities in Texas at $2.255 per gallon, according to AAA, or $33.83 for a 15-gallon tank. The lowest city average was in Corpus Christi, where prices stood at $2.136 for regular unleaded gasoline, or $32.04 for a 15-gallon tank.

At the Texas average of $2.208 per gallon for gasoline, drivers paid $33.12 for a 15-gallon tank on Monday, up from $27.09 a year ago for a $6.03 increase.

Drivers paying the national average of $2.286 spent $34.29 for the same tank, compared to $28.65 a year ago for a $5.64 rise in cost.

Texas drivers with diesel vehicles paid an average of $2.333 per gallon on Monday, up from $1.697 a year ago. That increased the price of a 15-gallon tank to $34.96 per gallon from $25.46 a year ago, a $9.50 rise.

Nationally, diesel drivers paid $2.43 per gallon for diesel fuel, up from $1.802 a year ago. The same 15-gallon tank now costs $36.45 that once cost $27.03, or $9.42 more.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Victoria Advocate, Texas

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Source: Victoria Advocate, Victoria, Texas

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