AAA Says Gas Prices Are At 12 Year Low This July 4th
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Here's something else to celebrate: it's been 12 years since gas has been this cheap on the 4th of July.
AAA says the national average price for a gallon of regular is $2.23, which is four cents cheaper than it was last year.
"It's very unusual to see lower prices in early July than what you saw in January," said Tom Kloza, Global Head of Energy Analysis for the Oil Price Information Service.
He says the price of crude, is steering the trend.
"It dropped to about $42 on the first day of summer," he said.
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Kloza says the U.S. increased production, while Nigeria and Libya were exempted from Opec's agreement to cut back.
"Despite the violence and all the chaos that those countries have, they produced about as high as they would if everything was just hunky dory," he said.
As the summer wears on, Kloza expects prices to go up a bit sharply if we have a hurricane.
"But it's a spike," he said. "It's like the fever, it won't last, and will be cheap by the time whatever kind of shopping season we have rolls around in the fall."