COLUMBUS – Ohio drivers are ringing in the New Year with more low prices at the gas pump.
The average price for a gallon of regular was about $1.87 in Monday’s survey from auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and WEX Inc. That’s 2 cents less than the price drivers were paying a week ago and up 3 cents compared with this time last year.
Ohio’s prices continue running below the national average for regular gas, which was $1.99 to start this week. A year ago, the national average was about $2.21.
Motorists are coming off a year when fuel prices remained low due to a worldwide glut in crude oil.
The national average price of gas in 2015 was $2.40 per gallon, the second cheapest annual average of the past ten years. Only 2009 was lower during that time, according to the auto club.
The annual average was about 94 cents per gallon less than 2014.
The price could remain flat or drop another 10 cents per gallon over the next few weeks but, by late winter, may rebound by about 50 cents a gallon as refineries conduct seasonal maintenance in advance of the busy summer driving season, AAA public relations manager Michael Green said.
Despite the likelihood of higher prices by spring, Green does not expect the national average price of gas to rise above $3 per gallon in 2016.