Gas dips to $1.99 in parts of New Jersey

Drivers are paying a lot less for their holiday traveling. The price of gasoline has dropped below $2 a gallon at a few stations in New Jersey.

 

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the Garden State is now $2.39, quite a difference from the $3.28 it cost a year ago.

In the Philadelphia area, drivers are paying about $2.68 a gallon, while Delaware motorists in the vicinity of Wilmington are paying about $2.53.

But that’s about as low as it will go, according to Tom Kloza, the head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall Township.

“I think that the $1.99 numbers that are populating a couple of parts of New Jersey right now, that represents about as good as it gets,” he said Monday. “I’m not looking for a big bounce, but I am looking for prices to cycle back a little bit higher in the first quarter of 2015, and then it’s going to be all about the OPEC meeting in June.”

A decline in crude oil prices has also pushed the cost of home heating oil down more than a dollar a gallon compared with last year, he said. And that could save families hundreds of dollars this winter.

Those flying to holiday destinations, however, will not see any appreciable dip in the costs of their tickets thanks to waning fuel prices.

“Even though we’re looking at the lowest jet fuel prices in five years, we’re not looking at any breaks on fares or any added capacity,” Kloza said. “So it seems at though capitalism works for hearing oil, for diesel, and for gasoline, but it doesn’t work for jet fuel.”