Just in time for the holiday season, Houston drivers are getting some relief. After months of increasing or stagnant gas prices, the price at the pump is starting to come down. The AAA Weekly Gas Watch has this week's Texas statewide average at $2.24 per gallon, down three cents from last week, but still 25 cents more than a year ago at this time. In Houston, the average fell a penny this week to $2.21 per gallon.
Several factors combined to keep gas prices higher in recent months, including Hurricane Harvey and increased demand through the fall season. But those factors are now changing. "We're starting to see prices now get back down to close to where they were prior to Harvey," says Patrick DeHaan, petroleum analyst at GasBuddy. "Now, demand for gasoline is dropping more precipitously this week, and that may allow gas prices to remain relatively low."
Those low prices are already being seen across the Houston area. "We're starting to see some stations offer gas under two dollars a gallon, in fact a couple dozen stations across the Houston metro area as low as a dollar-92 a gallon," says DeHaan. "And we should continue to see some stations offering sub-two dollar-a-gallon prices perhaps for the next month or two."