The cost of gasoline hit Tammy Williams hard when she drove her pickup from Baltimore to New Hampshire last weekend to visit her son at Dartmouth College. She spent $450 filling the tank.
So she was relieved to find gas near her Northeast Baltimore home yesterday for less than $3 a gallon. At the Sunoco station on York Road and Cold Spring Lane, regular gas sold for $2.79.
"It's a help," said Williams, an employee at Chimes in the city, who hopes to make more trips to see her son, though she's cut out the trips she used to make to a cabin in West Virginia. "Gas is just too expensive."
Gas prices peaked at $4.05 on average in the Baltimore area on June 17. But falling crude oil prices have brought down prices at the pump over the past few months. On Friday, the average price of a gallon of gas fell below $3, to an average $2.97 per gallon, according to AAA's daily fuel gauge report.
By yesterday, prices declined even more. A gallon of regular gas averaged $2.91 in the Baltimore area, AAA reported. And for the first time in eight months yesterday, prices went below the $3 per gallon barrier both in Maryland and in the nation.
"Gasoline prices in Maryland are continuing their free-fall," Ragina C. Averella, a spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said yesterday, adding that in Maryland, prices have fallen more than $1 per gallon since June 17. "AAA expects gas prices to fall faster and further in the days ahead, as the price of crude oil tumbles."
Oil is now down $75 a barrel - or 51 percent - since soaring to a record high of $147.27 on July 11. On Friday, light sweet crude for November delivery rose $2 to settle at $71.85 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Associated Press reported. The drop, which comes amid economic turmoil that has slowed demand for energy, has prompted the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to schedule a meeting for Friday to consider an emergency production cut to keep prices from falling further.
For consumers, the drop in gas prices has come as a ray of light in an otherwise gloomy economy that has consumers worried about jobs, rising costs, stagnant home values and the security of their savings and investments.
"It's awesome and saves a lot of money," said Steve Castellanos, 24, an insurance estimator who said his job expenses have increased because he drives long distances. "It seems like you've got to ride out the bad to get to the good."
