Survey: Gas prices down 6 cents
CAMARILLO, California (CNN) -- The average cost of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline tumbled more than 6 cents over the past two weeks, a nationwide survey released Sunday said.
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Gasoline prices in selected cities. Prices are per gallon of regular:
- Los Angeles: $2.12
- Seattle: $1.83
- Washington: $1.72
- Chicago: $1.69
- Philadelphia: $1.66
- Denver: $1.59
- Detroit: $1.58
- Houston: $1.54
- New Orleans: $1.53
- Atlanta: $1.44
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The price, down 6.07 cents, to $1.67, occurred between March 21 and April 4 and marks the first drop in the cost of gasoline since late November, said Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey.
Lundberg credited the price cut to drops in the cost of crude oil since the beginning of the Iraq war. The decline in crude prices are only now being felt at the pump.
The price of crude oil started falling on March 17, the day the president gave Iraq 48 hours to give up its alleged weapons of mass destruction or face war, she said.
At the time, the cost of a barrel was $34.93. By April 4, the same barrel was down to $28.62, a drop of 18 percent, she said.
"There is reduced uncertainty now," she said.
Lundberg predicted further drops, given the progress of the U.S. war effort and the fact that most refineries have completed the annual spring maintenance required to shift from producing heating oil to producing gasoline.
At $1.38 per gallon, Tulsa, Oklahoma, motorists paid the least in the nation; San Francisco, California, drivers shelled out the most, at $2.15.