Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Gas prices are gradually going down both locally and nationally. According to AAA, drivers in the Buffalo-Niagara region paid an average of $3.69 cents for a gallon on Friday, which is about an average of 7 cents less compared to what Western New Yorkers paid last month.
Now approaching the colder months, the demand is decreasing, "We're seeing the national average, the state average and local prices going down," Western and Central New York AAA's Elizabeth Carey told WBEN on Friday. "For instance, Buffalo prices are down four cents since Monday. So these gas prices are dropping, you know, demand is steady, but you know, lower now than it was in the summertime. But at the same time, gasoline stocks have recovered. So all the gasoline supplies are back on track, that's helping bring those prices down."
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Denton Cinquegrana, Chief Oil Analyst for OPIC says that gas prices should continue to decrease during these winter months.
"During the Buffalo snowstorm, nobody moved except for the trucks that were plowing and everything. So you have a demand decline that that normally takes place this time of year anyway and you have that formulation switch, meaning it's the winter grade versus summer grade gasoline. That winter grade gasoline, it's easier to make, it's cheaper to make. So that plays a role as well. This is a trend that really kind of takes place, starting in kind of late October, early November, and continues to tie through and the trend moves from West to East from about mid-February, through the mid-April. So again, prices are moving lower, they should continue to move lower and we'll probably be in that kind of lower trend, probably through most of the winter."
Both Cinquegrana and Carey says that oil is continuing to normalize downward as well, down to about $80 a barrel.
Looking to the future, where will the prices be by Christmas time and the end of the year?
"I think we're gonna be relatively close to where we were last year, if not even a little bit below, I think it would take a lot to get the national average below $3, but I do think there's an outside shot of that," Cinquegrana says. "Right now the national average is just under $3.50 [a gallon]. But chances are, we're probably going to be down to about $3.25 or so maybe even $3.20 [a gallon], nationally. New York kind of runs probably about 15 to 20 cents above the national average and that was the same case last year as well in 2021. So you're looking at probably about $3.30 to $3.50, somewhere in that neighborhood over the next three, four weeks."
New York's gas average as of Friday, Dec. 2nd stands at about $3.73 a gallon. If gas prices continue to drop ten cents a week before the new year, then Cinquegrana's prediction of $3.20 a gallon could be probable. What maybe could be a stretch, is seeing gas prices under $3 a gallon, "It would have to take several weeks for it to drop below $3 a gallon I should say. It usually doesn't drop more than maybe 10 cents a week, that's a pretty significant drop. So it'll be interesting to see what happens but we do hope they continue to come down," says Carey.
While gas tax holidays ended last week in some New York counties like Niagara and Chautauqua, our experts say that won't have make too much of a difference at the pump or prompt major change in price trends at the pump.
Click the players below to hear more from AAA's Elizabeth Carey and Denton Cinquegrana, who has a couple important dates and things to look out for toward the end of his interview: