Gas prices fall 9 cents to $2.98

Though current supplies of gasoline are ample to meet demand, pressure will build on prices as the spring driving season approaches.

(CNN) -- -- Gas prices fell more than 9 cents per gallon of self-serve regular during the past two weeks to $2.98, national surveys said Sunday.
The surveys -- carried out Jan. 25 and Jan. 11 -- found the average retail price fell 9.43 cents in two weeks, said Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey, which tallies prices at about 5,000 stations.
Gas prices had risen during the prior three weeks, Lundberg said. She credited the reverse on slightly lower crude oil prices and shrinkage in profit margins of refiners and retailers.
Barring a major change in the price of crude, "retail gasoline will probably hover around this level -- just under $3 per gallon -- for perhaps up to a month," Lundberg predicted.
But after that, even if oil prices do not rise, "there will be big pressure on gasoline prices to go up because our spring demand will pull it up."
Though current supplies of gasoline are ample to meet demand, "When consumers soak up that extra supply, prices will stop falling and be on the rise, possibly to a dramatic degree," she said.
Drivers in Tulsa, Okla., paid the least on average, at $2.70 per gallon of self-serve regular, and drivers in Honolulu paid the most, at $3.35 per gallon.

Here are prices in some other cities:
-- Atlanta: $2.96
-- Boston: $3.03
-- Burlington, Vt. $3.18
-- Houston: $2.88
-- Los Angeles: $3.07
-- Phoenix, Ariz.: $2.86
-- Seattle: $3.03
-- Wichita, Kan. $2.74