Just in time to fill up your car's tank for that busy holiday travel weekend, the price of gas in Minnesota has dipped below the $3.00 a gallon mark.
According to AAA, the state average price for a gallon of regular, unleaded gas is now $2.96 a gallon. The price is even lower in neighboring Wisconsin where it's an average of $2.75 a gallon, and Iowa, at $2.85 a gallon.
Gas remains over the $3.00 mark in both North and South Dakota. The national average is now at $3.18 per gallon. That is 14 cents lower than the previous week and 56 cents lower than a month ago.
One of the key reasons for the drop in price was the U.S. and the Biden Administration driving down the price of oil by tapping more of the strategic reserves.
The Biden administration said last Friday it is buying 3 million barrels more of oil to begin to replenish U.S. strategic reserves that officials drained earlier this year in a bid to stop gasoline prices from rising amid production cuts by OPEC and a ban on Russian oil imports.
President Joe Biden withdrew 180 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve starting in March, bringing the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The purchase, to begin in January, will start to replenish the reserve and is likely to be followed by additional purchases, officials said.
The Energy Department called the purchase “a good deal for American taxpayers″ since the price will be lower than the $96 per barrel average the U.S. oil was sold for. The replenishment also will strengthen U.S.
energy security, the department said in a statement.
The purchase price was not announced, but benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil was selling at $74.50 per barrel late Friday.
Tapping the reserve is among the few things a president can do by himself to try to control the inflation that makes Americans poorer and often creates a political liability for the party in control of the White House.
The administration completed the release of 180 million barrels in October. The reserve now contains roughly 400 million barrels of oil, down from more than 600 million in late 2021, according to the Energy Department.
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