PROVIDENCE – Gasoline prices in Rhode Island have fallen over the last week, AAA Southern New England reported Monday as crude oil traded near its lowest level in a month.
The auto club’s Jan. 25 survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular at Ocean State stations was $2.75 per gallon, down 2 cents from last week.
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Crude oil fell as much as 43 cents to $74.54 a barrel Monday in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest price since Dec. 22, Bloomberg News reported. Investors attributed the decline to a slump in equity markets and the possibility that China could raise interest rates to slow growth.
“With the equities markets pulling back a bit, future U.S. bank earnings in question, a slowdown in China, the second-largest economy in the world, the dollar showing some strength, and gasoline inventories on the rise, I am going to say oil could easily hit $73 or below next week,” Mike Sander, an investment adviser at Seattle-based Sander Capital Advisors, told Bloomberg in an e-mail.
Crude oil is likely to reach $95 a barrel by the end of this year and average $100 a barrel in 2011, analysts at Morgan Stanley said Monday in a research note. That would be triple the low of $33.98 a barrel that oil fell to nearly a year ago, on Feb. 12.
In its survey, AAA found prices in Rhode Island ranging from $2.62 to $2.87 per gallon for unleaded regular. At $2.75, the average price per gallon in Rhode Island is 5 cents higher than the average price nationwide of $2.70.
A year ago, gas prices in Rhode Island stood at $1.84 per gallon as they began to rise again following their steep descent from the prior summer’s record highs, according to AAA.
Prices also fell in Massachusetts. The AAA survey found the average price of self-serve, unleaded regular was $2.70 per gallon in the Bay State, down 2 cents from last week and 5 cents below Rhode Island’s average.
At stations in Rhode Island this week, the survey found average self-serve prices of $2.88 per gallon for midgrade unleaded, $3.00 for premium unleaded gasoline, and $2.98 for diesel.
For more information, visit AAA.com.
