Valley gas prices still dropping to start 2020. How much are you paying at the pump?
Gasoline prices in Fresno and the central San Joaquin Valley on Monday reflected a continuing retreat from last fall’s peak prices, dropping by a few pennies on average since the beginning of last week.
AAA Gas Prices reported that the average price of unleaded regular gasoline in the Fresno area was $3.44 per gallon, about two cents below the Jan. 6 price of $3.46. It’s also 69 cents per gallon cheaper than mid-October, when refineries that provide fuel for the state were going through maintenance that cut production and drove prices up to levels the region hadn’t experienced for five years.
While the average price in the Fresno market is down, prices at individual gasoline stations can vary widely, even between stations that are close to one another.
GasBuddy.com, a website and mobile app on which customers can report fuel prices at stations in real time, showed that the cheapest gas price in Fresno for regular unleaded was $2.97 per gallon at Costco, a membership warehouse store near Blackstone and Herndon Avenues. About a block away on Blackstone Avenue, a Chevron station was selling regular unleaded for $3.49 per gallon.
Among non-membership stores, $3.03 per gallon was the lowest cash price reported Monday by GasBuddy users, at several locations in the Fresno area. The highest price in the city was $3.63 per gallon at a Chevron station at Shaw and Brawley avenues.
In some parts of the Valley, prices at some stations have already dropped below $3 per gallon. While the average pump price in Merced was $4.11 per gallon on Monday, GasBuddy users were reporting prices as low as $2.82 per gallon at Costco, and $2.83 to $2.85 per gallon at some non-membership locations in the city.
Scattered stations in Hanford, Lemoore, Visalia and Tulare also offered gas at prices below $3 per gallon.
While California’s average gas prices remain well above the national average by almost a dollar per gallon, the falling prices in the state and the Valley follow a nationwide trend, according to Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy.
“With oil prices sagging lately, the door has been opened for a notable decline in U.S. gasoline prices, and that’s exactly what has happened,” DeHaan wrote in his GasBuddy blog on Monday, also predicting that prices will continue to drop for some time.
“The Midwest has been the largest beneficiary of seasonal effects thus far with prices in several areas there declining upwards of 10-15 cents per gallon,” DeHaan wrote. “The rest of the country will follow lower for the time being as demand for gasoline remains abysmal and the fuel being produced today will have to eventually be purged from the system over the next few months as refiners begin the transition to summer gasoline.”
DeHaan and AAA Gas Prices both reported that the combination of U.S. oil inventories that higher than normal for this time of year and lower-than-usual demand for gasoline are fueling the decline in prices.
This story was originally published January 20, 2020 at 12:29 PM.
