Syria fear premium almost gone

Prices dropped once again since I wrote Syria fear premium fades some more.

Today, I saw that all four stations matched each other at $3.59, a six cent drop since last Friday.  According to Econobrowser, that matched the national average and was below the average price for both Michigan and Detroit of just over $3.61.  What's driving the decline in retail gas prices is the moderating price of Brent Crude of $113.72, three dollars below the peak price of  $116.71 at the end of August.  That translates to an expected national average of $3.68.  Gas is at the national average and below the averages for the state and metro area, as well as below the expected price.  I can't complain that gas isn't fairly priced.  Here's to hoping the fear premium fades away and prices return to where they were at the start of the last week of August.

Yeah, right.  We should be so lucky.

We're not that lucky, but we're getting there.

Early this afternoon, the corner station was still selling gas at $3.59, but the three stations down the block had lowered their price another step to $3.55.  By this evening, the corner station had joined them.  Since my tank was almost empty and I didn't expect prices to drop until another week has passed, I filled up.

As for how the local price compares, it's below the national and Detroit averages of $3.57 and right at the Michigan average of $3.55.  It's also a dime below the expected national average of $3.65 given the current Brent crude price of $112.63.  Again, I have nothing to complain about given the price of crude.

By the way, while the neighborhood prices haven't returned to where they were before the latest price spike began, the national, state, and metro area prices all have.  In fact they're all below where they were on August 27, when the price spike occurred.  On that date, the national and Detroit averages were $3.58 and the Michigan average was $3.59.  The Syria fear premium has almost completely faded away.