Lundberg: Gas falls again but declines over

ATLANTA (CNN) -- The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular dipped nearly 2 cents over the past two weeks, to $2.18, according to a national survey released Sunday.

The "Lundberg Survey" compared prices at about 5,000 gas stations on Nov. 3 with prices at those same stations on Oct. 20, and found they had dropped 1.92 cents, Publisher Trilby Lundberg told CNN.

Gasoline prices fell again in late October but the biggest declines are over for now, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg says.

That brings the total drop over the past 12 weeks to 84 cents a gallon for self-serve regular, Lundberg said.

Drivers in Tulsa, Okla., paid the least, at $1.99 a gallon; Honolulu drivers paid the most, at $2.77.

Lundberg attributed the 12-week slide in prices to a late-summer oversupply. This latest drop represents the smallest two-week fall during that period and may mean that the trend downward has ended, she said.

"The glut that caused the price crash in the first place has been soaked up; the price crash has to be over," she said.

Another indication is that the drop in prices at the pump was not accompanied by a drop in prices for crude oil, which have steadied around $59 to $60 a barrel. Instead, the price drop represented reduced profit margins for refiners and retailers, she said.

In fact, prices rose in 17 of the 68 large metropolitan areas that she surveyed and were flat in several others, she said.

Lundberg expressed doubt that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' announced production cut of 1.2 million barrels a day - 4 percent of its overall output - has had any impact on the price of crude.

"The market did not believe that volume reductions would take place of the magnitude announced," she said.

But many variables affect the price of gas, she noted, citing geopolitical tension in oil-producing countries and changes in weather.

Here are some prices in other cities:

Atlanta: $2.03

Burlington, Vt. $2.22

Chicago: $2.34

Dallas: $2.06

Denver: $2.09

Phoenix: $2.13

Portland, Ore. $2.31

San Francisco: $2.37

Washington: $2.18

The price of gasoline and oil has a major effect not only on consumers but on the nation's biggest oil producers - ExxonMobil (Charts), Chevron (Charts) and ConocoPhillips (Charts) - and refiners such as Valero Energy (Charts).

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