Oil prices have been sliding since the summer. You may even call it a free fall. The price for West Texas crude first dropped below $100 in July and now $80/barrel looks like it may be the new normal. Gasoline prices are now slowly catching up. The national average is currently $2.98 a gallon, down about 9% from this time last year. Crude on the other hand is down more than 16% from last year.

Yahoo Finance asked KKM Financial Founder and CEO Jeff Kilburg who might be standing to benefit from that discrepancy. “I think the refiners are,” he said. After all – about 2/3 of the price of gasoline is determined by oil prices. Refineries, taxes, distribution and so on determine the rest. While this exact makeup tends to vary by region, it’s fair to say oil prices are the most important factor in determining the price of gas; plummeting crude should mean cheaper fuel. In that regard, low crude prices are “a victory in the big picture for the consumer,” according to Kilburg. “Crude oil back under $80, that’s a win.” And fuel prices could be heading lower still. “The momentum is there,” said Kilburg. “Crude oil is in a bear market. As soon as it got under $86.14, you’re gonna see continuous selling pressure in the crude oil [market], which as you know 66% of that is reflected in the ‘pain at the pump’ price. So I think we do get closer to $2/gallon.” Kilburg added that that could mean more people will splurge on a Snickers or Coca Cola (KO) at the gas station.

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In theory, Americans spend more when fuel prices are low. Saving money at the pump should translate into having more cash-in-hand on trips to the grocery store and mall. But so far, that doesn’t seem to be panning out.

“There’s a deflationary under current, but what does deflation mean [in this case] – deflation means that folks are having prices come down lower, but they’re also concerned and maybe they delay some of those purchases,” said Kilburg. “So this deflationary current it is troubling in the big picture.” Google “lower gas prices boost spending” and there’s no article out there to say that’s been the case. Some are predicting it, many journalists are asking that question, but so far, no evidence that “pleasure at the pump” so to speak has the same kind of impact as “pain at the pump.”

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