UPDATE: The price of regular unleaded gasoline dropped another nickel per gallon since this item was posted. The hits just keep coming.

My wife and I deserve some of the credit — maybe just a teeny-tiny bit of it — for the falling gasoline prices in Amarillo and around the country.

You ask: Why is that? I’ll tell you.

I went to the service station Saturday morning to put gasoline into my hybrid car, the one that runs on electricity as well as gasoline. It’d been 16 days since I last put gas into my little Prius buggy. I filled it up. Total cost? $15.95. That’s it. I burned less than 6.5 gallons of gasoline for the past two-plus weeks.

Therein lies one of the causes of this downward slide of oil prices, which means the price of gas also is coming down. Gas prices in Amarillo today average about $2.39 per gallon of unleaded regular. That’s more than a buck a gallon less than what it was a year ago!

We aren’t alone. Others are doing the same thing, buying fuel-efficient cars, which burn less gas, which means less demand on oil supplies.

Then came word this past week that OPEC — that consortium of oil-producing countries — won’t cut production. I guess they figure there’s still money to be made pumping oil out of the ground. So, OPEC won’t manipulate the supply side of this equation, at least for the time being.

My wife and I are happy to be doing our part. Now, if only we could get the price of diesel to come down a bit more so we don’t feel guilty driving our big ol’ pickup — which is parked most of the time.

You’re welcome.