Expert: gas prices won’t keep sliding this summer

Gasoline prices in New Jersey have dropped for 13 weeks in a row, but one analyst expects they won’t go much lower this summer.

The average price of a gallon of regular in the Garden State is now $3.29. That’s 50 cents below the highs reached in mid-April.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, New Jersey, said concerns that hurricanes could disrupt oil supplies and less pessimism about the economic situation in Europe could send gas prices higher over the next several weeks.

“I don’t think we’re going to see a runaway market or a roller coaster, but we may have seen the lows for at least July and August,” said Kloza. “Prices will move lower after Labor Day, but in the meantime I think we might suspect to see what we see now or just a little bit higher.”

Kloza predicts gas prices could drop more after the summer travel season.

“I suspect that we’ll see around $3 in the last, let’s say, 75 days of the year,” said Kloza. “After Labor Day you don’t have quite the threat of hurricanes anymore, you have less gasoline usage, and it’s much easier to manufacture gasoline.”