The average price of a gallon of gasoline in California dropped by the biggest amount yet for a one-week period after the recent new record, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.
The state's average declined 26.3 cents, to $4.164 a gallon. That's the good news.
The bad news is that California prices remain far above 2011 levels.
The state's average has dropped 50.7 cents a gallon since reaching a record $4.671 a gallon on Oct. 9. But that's still 32.3 cents a gallon higher than it was on Oct. 29 last year.
Analysts blamed the recent record price on panic buying by traders over a feared shortage of fuel.
Another factor, according to the California Energy Commission, was a refinery outage that occurred while the state was near five-year lows in fuel production and fuel supplies.
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