The sound of those additional coins in his pocket was music to the ears of motorist Bruce Coddington, 58, an electrical power plant operator from the logging country of McKinleyville, Calif., which is about 70 miles south of Crescent City.
Coddington had paid as much as $4.99 a gallon for diesel for his 2000 Ford truck and nearly as much for the premium gasoline required by his 350-horsepower 2004 Corvette.
"It used to cost me $100 just to fill up the truck. It hurt a lot of people up here who drive trucks and who work in the lumber industry," Coddington said.
Told that some analysts were speculating on gasoline dropping under $1 a gallon nationally and just slightly higher in California, Coddington didn't need time to think about what his reaction would be.
"I would be ecstatic," said Coddington, who last filled up his Corvette on $2.20-a-gallon premium gas at the local Costco on Friday.
"Gas that cheap would be great for the economy, and it will help bring a lot of other prices for the things we have to buy down too," he said.
Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey, said that more relief was probably on the way. Kloza noted that California wholesale gasoline prices were running at about 99.5 cents a gallon Monday.
Kloza wasn't among those who saw gasoline dropping below $1 a gallon, but he said more price relief was on the way. Kloza predicted that the U.S. average would drop to about $1.50 a gallon, with California coming in slightly higher before stabilizing.
--
ron.white@latimes.com
