There is no doubt the current recession and credit crunch has been hitting Americans’ squarely in the wallet, but there appears to be at least one bit of silver lining to the economic downturn – lower gas prices.

For the month of January, crude oil futures fell to just $43.67, the lowest per barrel price since January 2005. Moreover, many industry experts are predicting that crude oil could fall below $25 per barrel early next year.

“We’ve got the U.S, U.K., Europe and Japan all in recession for the first time since World War II, and the oil market is reacting,” Chip Hodge, a managing director at MFC Global Investment Management in Boston, told Bloomberg. If China starts to feel the effects of a recession, prices could plummet even lower.

To put $25 per barrel into perspective, crude oil hit a high of $147.27 per barrel in July, resulting in a per gallon national average record of $4.11 per gallon. At the current per barrel rate of about $44, national prices are hovering around $1.78 per gallon, meaning a drop to $25 or less could result in gas prices tumbling below a dollar per gallon.

That’s good news for individual families, but a sad commentary on the current state of the world economy.

Source: LeftLane