No big gasoline price drop before Christmas: government

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While U.S. retail gasoline prices fell slightly over the last week, drivers should not expect a big drop at the pump by Christmas, the government's top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday.

"Although crude oil prices have been highly volatile so far this week, making it difficult to predict the direction of markets in coming weeks, a significant decline in gasoline prices before Christmas appears unlikely," the Energy Information Administration said in its weekly review of the oil market.

U.S. crude oil hit a record $99.29 a barrel on Wednesday. The price of crude accounts for more than half the cost of making gasoline.

The national price for regular gasoline is down 1.2 cents to an average $3.10 a gallon this week, but still up 86 cents from a year ago, according to the EIA.

U.S. drivers are paying the highest price for gasoline ever during a Thanksgiving holiday week, but pump costs are short of the all-time high of $3.22 a gallon set last May.

"While holiday travelers will be paying more this year to eat pumpkin pie with grandma, they should realize that for a 100-mile round-trip, in a vehicle averaging 20 miles per gallon, they will be spending less than $5 more on fuel costs this year versus last year," the EIA said.

The AAA predicts that 38.7 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more during Thanksgiving and the automobile will be the primary mode of transportation for 80 percent of those trips.

The average price U.S. drivers paid for gasoline during Thanksgiving week for the past six years was: $2.24 a gallon

(2006), $2.20 (2005), $1.95 (2004), $1.51 (2003), $1.38 (2002) and $1.17 (2001).

(Reporting by Tom Doggett; editing by Jim Marshall)