Neighborhood stations at last year's lows already

I was dead wrong at the end of WXYZ notices $3.00 gas.

When I drove past this evening, it was at $3.15.  Based on the Detroit average rising to a dozen cents higher, I don't expect any more price drops locally this week.  Prices might actually go back up to $3.19 if they do anything at all before resuming their slide down.

I was wrong not once, but twice.  Thursday, all the neighborhood stations lowered their price for regular to $3.13.  This afternoon, all of the had dropped their price for regular down to $3.09.  Of course, my prediction was based on the Detroit average price holding.  It didn't.

GasBuddy shows the national average sliding off the $3.27 shelf to $3.25 while the Detroit average fell off its temporary peak to $3.22.  The neighborhood average is once again more than a dozen cents lower than the metro mean.  Not only does this mean that gas prices in the immediate vicinity are 28 cents lower than at this time last year when they were at $3.37, but they are as low all four together reached all last year, when they hit $3.09 first in November, then in December.  That's still five cents above the $3.04 the corner station hit briefly last November, but the other stations didn't match it before it charged into No Man's Land.  This year, I'm pretty sure that all four stations will go at least that low.

As an aside, the corner station has once again increased the premium it charges for midgrade over regular.  Before this week, the difference was 15 cents.  Now it's 19 cents.  As Jack Sparrow would say, that's interesting, that's very interesting.

Follow over the jump for the latest from Reuters on oil and CNBC on gasoline futures to see if prices will continuing falling below $3.04.

The answer apparently will be yes, as Reuters reports Oil rebounds off 4-year low on short covering.

Global oil prices rebounded on Friday, after sinking to the lowest levels in nearly four years earlier in the day, as end-of-week short-covering stalled a near four-month price rout.

Pressured by ample supply and weak economic data, Brent crude oil has dropped $25 dollars since June and on Friday fell below $90 a barrel to its lowest level since December 2010. U.S. prices have also fallen sharply.
...
Brent crude for November delivery settled up 16 cents at $90.21 a barrel after earlier falling to $88.11, the lowest since December 2010.

U.S. November crude finished up just 5 cents at $85.82 a barrel. The contract earlier hit a session low of $83.59, its lowest since July 2012.

I predicted that the next support levels for crude oil would be $90 for Brent and $85 for WTI.  Both hit those levels and sank below them before bouncing back above them as if they had landed on a trampoline.  That's exactly what I'd expect from a support price.  Now to see if prices remain above those levels on Monday.

CNBC is showing RBOB gasoline closing at $2.2575/gallon today, which is more a dime cheaper than the $2.3683 a gallon just this Tuesday.  Oh, yeah, gasoline below $3.00 a the local pump, here we come.