Idaho gas prices plummet

According to Sun Valley Company public relations representative Jack Sibbach, the resort is now keeping its Sun Valley Road Sinclair station open 24 hours a day. Between the hours of 5 p.m. and 6 a.m., the station is open only with credit card use, Sibbach said.

The gas prices have been dropped in part to advertise for the new 24-hour service, Sibbach said. Also, he said that historically, Sun Valley Company has not had the cheapest gasoline in the upper valley; now it does.

Local gas price drops are, however, only an indicator of what is going on statewide.

Idaho’s office of the American Automobile Association said the statewide average price for a gallon of self-serve unleaded gasoline is $1.08, down 8.4 cents since the Thanksgiving holiday and at the lowest level for the Christmas holiday season since 1989.

The current average price is six cents higher than the national average price of $1.02 and is 23 cents lower than the price Idaho motorists paid one year ago.

"Idaho’s retailers have responded to the market conditions with gasoline prices at or below the dollar-a-gallon average mark at some locations," said Idaho’s AAA spokesman Dave Carlson. "In Boise, prices plummeted a dime in a period of a few days this past week."

Idaho price drops are a result of what has been going on nationally for the past several months. The U.S. retail marketplace has responded to heavy inventories of crude oil and refined fuel products and lower seasonal demand, said Carlson.