Southern California gas prices stop rising, despite OPEC's decision to cut production
The relentless rise to Southern California's gas prices has stopped – just as they are poised to jump across the country after OPEC announced they would cut back on production.
The 33-day streak of gas price increases that pushed the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County to new record highs finally ended Thursday with a tiny decrease – three-tenths of a cent to $6.49. That average price had gone up $1.25 over the past 33 days, and is 23 cents more than a week ago, and more than $2 more than a year ago, according to AAA and Oil Price Information Service.
The price drop was slightly more pronounced in Orange County – 2.3 cents down to $6.44 after going up 15 of the past 16 days.
Experts say California's high prices could finally start going down, even as the rest of the nation braces for gas prices to go up following OPEC's decision to cut production by 2 million barrels a day starting in November. They cited global economic and oil market uncertainty as the reason for the cut in production.
"Our issue has been regional refinery issues, a string of both planned and unplanned maintenance issues," AAA's Doug Shupe told CBS News Los Angeles. "However there's good news -- it appears as though some of those regional refineries are coming out of that maintenance."
And coupled with imported gasoline products slated to arrive on the West Coast within the next two weeks and the early switch to the cheaper winter blend, that could move prices down substantially, Shupe said.
California drivers, however, have gone through so many gas price ups and down just this year – spikes in the spring, drops through much of the summer – that the overriding sentiment is: We'll believe it when we see it.
