International instability and environmental irresponsibility reward Sacramento drivers

International instability and wanton fracking are rewarding your wallet, if not your habitat.

Despite a half-cent raise to Sacramento’s retail gas prices last week, the industry-tracker GasBuddy is forecasting consumers will spend $17 billion less on car food this year compared to last.

As of January 11, a daily survey of 720 gas outlets in Sacramento put the average retail price at $2.58 per gallon, a half-cent over what it was the previous week. That figure was 10.4 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and 13.1 cents per gallon higher than a month ago, a GasBuddy release states, but also on par with previous years, according to one of the company’s analysts.

While tensions between oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Iran would have jacked prices in the past, “the times have changed,” senior petroleum analyst Jeff Pelton said in the release. “[T]he incentive now is for the Saudis to pump away and keep Iran’s coffers as empty as they can.”

Meanwhile, GasBuddy’s 2016 Fuel Price Outlook predicted the national retail average would sag for the fourth straight year, to $2.28 a gallon, though cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco would remain higher on the bell curve. According to the forecast, a trend “that accelerated with fracking” put last year’s domestic crude oil inventory at its “highest level in 80 years.”