If you're planning to travel by car this Fourth of July weekend, you're in luck -- gas prices are down.
In Maine, the price of gas is down 3.5 cents - to $2.23 a gallon.
GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick DeHahn says, in fact, prices this year are they lowest they've been in more than a decade. "Last summer was one of the best since 2005 to fill up and now it looks like this year may overtake that."
DeHahn says crude oil prices are down about $8 a barrel from $51 in early May, to about $43 now. And he says that's pretty much due to supply and demand. "OPEC's production cuts from last November really have been offset by rising U.S. oil production," he says, "and that's leading oil supplies to increase, and causing prices to drop."
He says that increased supply is coming from existing wells - "Bakken, Permian Basin, Eagle Ford in Southern Texas" - that were shut down in 2014 when oil prices fell dramatically. Now those wells have been reopened and the growth in supply is offsetting OPEC's cuts in production last November.
Elsewhere, the national average fell 2.6 cents to $2.25 per gallon. That's a decrease of 11.5 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 5.7 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.
