Gas prices in south western Kentucky are expected to be a little higher than the last few weeks this Christmas, but not by much.
According to the weekly AAA East Central Gas Price Report, averages are a penny higher now than they were the last seven days, up to $2.68 per gallon.
This time last year, the average was $2.83.
In the News Edge Listening Area, it’s: $2.71 in Caldwell County, $2.66 in Christian County, $2.65 in Crittenden County, $2.59 in Hopkins County, $2.74 in Lyon County, $2.73 in Muhlenberg, $2.69 in Todd County, and $2.79 in Trigg County.
Right now, it’s $2.69 in Bowling Green, $2.67 in Elizabethtown, $2.84 in Louisville, $2.56 in Owensboro and $2.65 in Paducah.
The national average for a gallon of gas has also slightly reversed course, rising two cents to $3.04 over the past week. The price increase comes as a record 119 million people are forecast to travel this holiday season — including more than 107 million by car.
This week’s national average is a penny less than a month ago and eight cents less than a year ago.
The Energy Information Administration has tallied the impact of this year’s hurricane season and reports that unplanned outages of crude oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, mostly due to storms, averaged 295,000 barrels per day in September and 110,000 in November. This accounted for 16% and 5%, respectively, of total crude oil production from the Gulf in those months.
Strikingly, though, the impact at the pump was relatively muted, as prices popped by a few pennies before resuming their seasonal decline.
At the end of last Wednesday’s formal trading session, West Texas Intermediate rose 50 cents to settle at $70.58 a barrel. Considered a grade, or mix, of crude oil, West Texas Intermediate also refers to the spot price, the futures price, or assessed price for that oil, and is traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Another common name for it: “Texas light sweet.”
