Tampa, FL - If you are traveling this Memorial Day Weekend, gas prices may not be as high as expected.
This change comes after Thursday's OPEC meeting. OPEC re-evaluated its existing agreement to call for a reduction of 1.8 million barrels of output a day. It was expected to not only extend this agreement from six to nine months, but implement further cuts.
Instead, while OPEC did extend the output cut to nine months, it did not make any additional cuts. This caused oil prices to drop nearly $3, settling at $48.90 per barrel.
Mark Jenkins, a spokesperson for AAA says, "The expectation of a 9-month extension was already baked into the price of crude oil, so when no additional cuts were passed, the market lost excitement, and oil dropped."
He says what this means for motorists this Memorial Day Weekend is steady retail prices and the possibility of only a few minor fluctuations at the pump.
According to AAA, the average gas price for a gallon of regular on Friday is at $2.31 for Florida and $2.29 for Daytona Beach. That's up six cents for Florida from last year, but 35 cents from Memorial Day 2015.
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