CHEAPER GAS HAS DRIVERS PUMPED.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Southern California drivers enjoying gasoline for as little as 95.9 cents a gallon may want to thank an aging diplomat from Ghana the next time they fill up at the pump.

Market watchers say that in averting a U.S. war with Iraq, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan cleared the way Tuesday for a new round of gasoline price cuts.

With a gallon of self-service regular unleaded gas already selling for less than a dollar at many Los Angeles-area stations, that prospect has consumers delighted and analysts wondering just how low prices can go.

``I'm in awe,'' Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the biweekly Lundberg Survey, which tracks the U.S. gasoline market, said Tuesday. ``We're already enjoying almost unsustainably low prices.''

Had the United States attacked Iraq, it almost certainly would have interrupted Middle East crude-oil production, said Bob Aldrich, a director at the Sacramento-based California Energy Commission. And an oil-for-food program worked out with Iraq after the first Persian Gulf War likely would have been curtailed or canceled outright, he said.

Thanks to Annan, not only does the near-term Middle East supply look steady, but Iraq will now be allowed to export more than twice its current output of $2 billion worth of oil every six months.

Even before the news, the world crude-oil market was considered saturated due to decreased demand in currency-crunched Asia and in the United States, where a milder-than-expected winter has cut demand for heating oil.

Annan's announcement set the stage for a further glut, sending crude prices to a four-year low, with April deliveries falling on the New York Mercantile Exchange by more than 60 cents a barrel Monday, and 6 cents Tuesday, to $15.31.

Retail gasoline prices have, in turn, continued a dive that from Feb. 6-20 saw the average price of a gallon of self-serve unleaded gasoline in Los Angeles drop 7 cents to $1.05.

Prices for a gallon of unleaded gas varied Tuesday around the area: Some stations in the west San Fernando Valley were charging as little as 95.9 cents a gallon; in Thousand Oaks, $1.05 was typical; in Lancaster, it was $1.03; while a Palmdale Texaco charged $1.07. In Simi Valley, Erringer Chevron station owner Harbans Chahal expected his prices today to drop 2 cents from Tuesday's $1.07.

In constant dollars, prices in California are at their lowest point in 28 years, and could drop further still, Aldrich said.

Drivers, for once, seem downright pleased at the pump.

``It's about time,'' said Sherman Oaks resident Phil Brahm, who was filling his Jeep Cherokee on Tuesday at a Woodland Hills Arco station for 95.9 cents a gallon. ``It was ridiculous for a while. You felt like the oil companies were manipulating the market to keep prices high.''

But area gas station owners are watching world events with dismay.

``I don't understand it,'' said Chuck Mercier, owner of a Unocal 76 station in Burbank where regular unleaded sold for $1.03 a gallon Tuesday. Mercier opened his station in May 1979, when full-service regular sold for 89 cents a gallon, and said he hasn't seen prices this low in a decade.

Lundberg said station owners are caught in a Catch-22: If they don't match competitors' prices, they'll lose business. But if they lower prices too far, they'll lose any profit margin.

``Eventually they're going to cry uncle,'' Lundberg said.

Ed Peralta, owner of Acton Unocal, said he's nearly there.

``This is as low as we've gone for the past four years,'' Peralta said of the $1.05 he's now charging for a gallon of self-serve regular unleaded gas. ``We have to keep the price down to stay competitive, so we depend on our suppliers to keep their prices down. If they don't, we could wind up taking a loss. That hasn't happened, but it's been touch-and-go.''

Some even say the real culprit is not an Iraqi deal or oil glut, but their fellow station owners.

``Saddam has nothing to do with it. It's competition that's driving it,'' said Harry Hawatmeh, owner of Harry's Mobil Mini Mart & Car Wash in Palmdale.

Daily News Staff Writers Deborah Adamson, Dave McNary, Enrique Rivero and Gregory J. Wilcox contributed to this story.