Several good things are happening in the gas market as far as consumers are concerned. First of all, we are at the end of the hurricane season, and we didn’t have any major hurricanes that went through the Gulf of Mexico," says Dr. Walden, an economist with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

"And prior to the season starting that was a big concern, and so prices actually had been bid up somewhat in expectation of there being some production outages in the Gulf. That didn’t happen, so that’s caused prices to come down a little bit," he adds.

"Another factor is the Lebanon ceasefire seems to be holding. That’s good news out of the Middle East. Iraq is actually pumping more oil than it’s done in two years. And OPEC has said it is going to maintain its production levels even in the face of declining prices.

"So that’s sort of all on the supply side, meaning supplies are plentiful," Walden says. "Now on the driving or consumption side: Prices always fall in the fall as we move out of that peak driving time during the summer.

"Something else is happening, and that is that drivers have actually been using less gasoline on any given month compared to last year because of the previously high prices. That’s actually helping to keep consumption lower and contributing to lower prices.

"Now how long will these lower prices last? Most economists think that they will last at least until the winter heating season kicks in," Walden concludes, "and then it is all going to depend on how severe a winter we have."