Despite speculation that gas prices would continue to rise even with the recent price spike for a barrel of oil, gas prices will drop a couple of cents this Thanksgiving.

Good news if you’ll be loading up the family truckster to head on out to your parents’ house for the annual American tradition that is Thanksgiving, your wallet may be a little heavier at the pump than normal. According to AAA on an official press release they dropped earlier yesterday (Nov. 20, 2017) a continuing trend of gas prices falling a couple of cents, ever since 2014, before the Thanksgiving holiday, is expected. This goes against normal logic that would’ve seen gas prices rise a couple of cents to get ahead of the mad holiday rush. Check out the handy little infographic AAA has provided for us below.

According to the AAA, there will be close to 46 million Americans traveling more than 50 miles away from homes by car during Thanksgiving. That means many of them will be making a trip to the gas station at least once before heading out.

A quick look at their handy chart that shows the trend of gas prices over the last four years shows a gradual dip in gas prices around this time of year, as mentioned, going at least all the way back to 2014.

AAA does its best to explain this trend in their Oil markets dynamics section. From what I can gather, although the price of a barrel of oil recently shot up, that price seems to have stabilized at around $56.55.

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I remember well when a price of a barrel of oil frequently peaked above $100 back in 2011 and the summer of 2009. Although a price of an oil barrel doesn’t directly translate to a gas price, it’s safe to say that a steady supply of cheap oil means lower prices at the pump. Right now the average gas price is around $2.54 in the nation.

In addition to this market adjustment in oil, there is a large supply of oil on hand in our nation’s reserves as well as a decent amount of oil rigs (including new construction) that has eased the supply side of oil availability.

What this means for you, the consumer, is that you can reasonably expect gas prices to dip in the coming days and to stay there plus or minus ten cents or so.

Happy travels!

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