WASHINGTON, D.C. — Average prices for fuel, including diesel, likely will continue to drop through the holidays and into the next year, according to the federal Energy Information Agency (EIA) and some fuel experts.

In its most recent report looking at pricing trends into 2015, released last week, the EIA lays out a scenario that has average diesel prices dipping to their lowest levels since the economy slid in the late 2000s.

And it is the combination of an abundance of crude oil and an easing demand as harvest season wraps up that will keep wholesale and cash prices at the pump at lower levels than in recent years, said Adam Ringo, a refined products trader for Indiana-based CountryMark.

“It’s really as simple as supply and demand, and demand has been weaker in the past several months, which is normal for this time of year, and refineries are still running at high utilization rates, so supply is plentiful,” he explained. A farmer-owned cooperative, CountryMark buys only crude oil from the Illinois Basin.

According to the EIA, wholesale gas prices from mid-summer through mid-October dropped by nearly $1 per gallon, while crude oil dropped by more than $25 per barrel. In its winter outlook report, the EIA predicts crude oil prices could drop to about $95 per barrel, the lowest rate in more than four years.

Driving that prediction is a continued increase in oil production right here in the United States, as well as in Canada. U.S. oil production reached 8.7 million barrels per day in September, the highest monthly production since July 1986, the EIA noted.

It predicts domestic oil production could hit 9.5 million barrels per day next year, which would be the highest level in the United States since 1970. That will lead to future price declines at the pump for regular gas as well as for diesel, predicts Jackie McKinnis, an energy analyst with GROWMARK, Inc.

“I think there’s a pretty good chance of prices going down even further,” McKinnis said. “The gas chart has been on a downswing the past four months.”

The national average gas price could dip to $3.14 per gallon before the end of the December, with diesel now hovering around $3.85 per gallon. The EIA sees diesel’s national average at about $3.80 going into the new year.

Fuel prices, of course, vary from state to state primarily because of tax differences. In Missouri last week, for instance, regular gas dropped to about $2.85 per gallon at some locations while in Illinois the average price was about $3.17. Diesel in Missouri was about $3.55 per gallon and about $3.75 in Illinois, according to AAA.