YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — Gas prices at U.S. military installations in South Korea slowly are working their way back down from the record highs reached earlier this summer, officials said Tuesday.
According to the Army and Air Force Exchange Service’s headquarters on Okinawa, the price of fuel at base pumps dropped from three cents to six cents per gallon, when the new prices took effect Wednesday.
Premium unleaded remained well above $2, dropping to $2.12 per gallon from $2.15. Regular unleaded dipped to $1.93 from $1.96.
Diesel fuel costs jumped up from $1.79 per gallon to $1.87 for September.
By comparison, on Tuesday, a gallon of unleaded fuel at an SK service station in Seoul was $4.59.
It was the second month in a row that overall AAFES prices in South Korea decreased slightly. On June 1, in contrast, a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in South Korea topped $2 for the first time in AAFES’s history, jumping 16 cents from the previous month.
AAFES’s fuel prices are adjusted monthly.
“These prices were calculated using the AAFES overseas gas pricing formula, which takes the Department of Energy average price of gasoline in the continental United States and adds local dispensing costs,” according to an AAFES statement.
The prices are based on the Department of Energy’s price figures for the previous four-day period.
Stateside prices have been mostly stable in recent weeks, after dropping about 20 cents per gallon from mid-summer highs, which saw average prices shoot well above the $2 threshold.
According to the Lundberg Survey, a national tracking service which releases bimonthly statistics, the combined national average for all grades of gasoline on Aug. 29 was $1.91 per gallon. The survey gathers price information from 7,000 gas stations across the United States.
The average price of regular, self-serve unleaded across the United States was $1.88; premium was $2.07.
With crude oil prices also retreating from record highs — and with the Labor Day end to the traditional summer travel season — gas prices should continue to decline, the Lundberg Survey predicted.
