SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Patrick De Haan, a gas price expert with GasBuddy, says average prices in Sacramento a month ago were at $5.54 before spiking to $5.89 a gallon Sept. 30. Now, we’re down to $5.20 a gallon, and he says prices could fall more.
"It's possible that in the next week or so we could get close to falling under $5 a gallon. That probably will take maybe 10 days or so, but it's been a dramatic turnaround and in this instance, very rare, gas prices have been falling just as fast as they went up. So that's something we don't see very often is prices — in three weeks — falling about 70 cents a gallon in Sacramento," said De Haan.
He says the waiver issued in California that allowed the state to switch over to the winter blend of gasoline early caused prices to fall quickly. He says there are typically five areas in California that switch over to the blend at different times.
"By the end of the year, we could be at $4.25 to $4.50. So keep in mind that’s making a lot of assumptions like the situation in the Middle East. There are still some risks but I still see plenty of relief coming," said De Haan.
He says to shop around for prices and not just pull into any gas station to fill up.
"You could be spending 50 cents to $1 a gallon more. To give you some examples, there are still plenty of stations in Sacramento that are charging over $5.50 a gallon, whereas there are stations charging a dollar a gallon less than that at $4.50 a gallon, so there’s a huge difference,” said De Haan. “I’ve heard it so much in the last few weeks. As prices have been falling, Californians are filling up at their normal station. Driving down the road, finding prices 25 to 50 cents a gallon cheaper. And that's what you find when prices are in free fall, you generally see a huge discrepancy in how quickly stations are lowering their prices.”
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