If you're planning on hitting the road for Thanksgiving weekend, you will have a little relief at the pump, at least here in Louisiana. Louisiana gas prices are dropping heading into the holiday weekend with the Louisiana average now at $3.09 per gallon.

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Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally one of the busiest travel weeks of the year, and indications were that travelers were still planning on hitting the road, even before this latest price drop.

Last year, gas prices were averaging around $3.10 per gallon, so Louisiana is one of the few states to see a decrease from the previous year.  (Yes, it's only a penny, but a decrease is a decrease!)   Gasbuddy.com petroleum analyst Patrick Dehaan said prices have shown a consistent drop over the past several weeks.

“We’re down eleven cents from last week and down 24 cents from a month ago, so by all metrics things are coming down and looking fairly good for Thanksgiving.”

Apparently it's more than just the release of oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve that's contributed to lower prices. Dehaan says one factor is the decreasing price of oil as China's economy remains locked down and decreased oil consumption with refineries returning to production from maintenance.

“Well, the price of oil has given up a lot of ground in the last week and a half, really the last few weeks, falling to $80/barrel. In fact, earlier today it had dropped to $76/barrel.”

Dehaan expects prices to continue to fall, but there's no telling how long they will continue the downward trend.

“I don’t know if we’ll see them falling through the end of the year, but I would say another week or two, potentially even more. We should see prices declining probably well into December for now.”

So, amidst rising grocery prices causing Thanksgiving dinner to cost more than ever, we'll take some good news where we can get it.

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