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If you’d asked Henry Luddeke two months ago whether gas would drop below $3 a gallon, you would have heard a resounding, “Nope.”

But Luddeke, the Southwest wholesale manager for Western Petroleum in Cuero, sang a different tune Tuesday, when some Victoria gas stations sold regular unleaded fuel as low as $2.92.

“I figured it would come down before the election, but not like this,” he said. “And it could go down a little bit more.”

Asia’s demand for diesel fuel and gasoline was up for a time, Luddeke said, possibly because of the Olympics.

The country could have hoarded the fuels to avoid blackouts and to have extra stored up to power electric plants, buses and cars.

A lot of the area’s price decrease has to do with Victoria’s location, Luddeke said.

Hurricane Ike still has some areas such as Houston reeling and short on fuel, he explained, but the Golden Crescent region gets its supply from Corpus Christi and Three Rivers.

“If that hurricane would’ve hit Corpus, we would’ve been in trouble,” he said.

Decreased crude oil prices are also partly to blame, said Jonathan Cogan, energy information specialist with the Energy Information Administration.

We hit the peaks in July when oil topped out at more than $140 a barrel, he explained, but prices dropped below $90 a barrel Tuesday.

Crude oil ended at $88.15 per barrel Tuesday, according to the Energy Information Administration Web site.

“So these prices are being passed through to the refiners, of course, and from the refiners to the retailers and eventually they show up at the pump,” he said.

The price drops are primarily driven by expectations of lower world economic growth, Cogan said. That, in turn, means less demand for energy and oil.

Shaky stock markets – which aren’t just a United States problem – also play a role, he said.

A slowdown in Asia and the Middle East, where petroleum demand has remained strong despite high prices, would affect future demand, Cogan explained, and could make the supply/demand balance more “comfortable” for consumers.

“What goes up does often come down, as well,” he said.

As far as what the future holds, the Victoria area will probably hit $3 per gallon again, Luddeke said, but shouldn’t near the $4 mark any time soon.

The area is basically out of hurricane season, he said, and the only other things that could affect prices would be a severe winter or a political uprising.