After dropping for a month, summer blues come to gas pumps

ALBANY — As expected, higher oil prices pulled gas pump prices up with them over the past week.

The good news for consumers, however, is it may be just a bump in the summer vacation road, though sharp declines in prices shouldn’t be expected, market watchers say.

“AAA forecasted the streak of gas price declines would come to an end last week,” said Mark Jenkins, a spokesman for AAA Auto Club Group. “What came as a bit of a surprise was the abrupt U-turn oil prices made after Independence Day.

“Instead of building on the momentum that pushed oil above $47 a barrel, the rally suddenly ran out of steam and oil stumbled back below $45. What that means to motorists is a short-lived bump in prices at the pump.”

U.S. oil was trading at $44.55, up 32 cents a barrel, late Monday.

In Georgia, gas prices rose for the first time in a month, with both the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report and GasBuddy’s Fuel Insights survey pegging the Monday average price around $2.115, up 3.6 cents from last week on AAA’s survey and a 6.70-cent rise according to GasBuddy. The average Monday was 1.6-1.8 cents more than Georgians were paying at the pump last year, depending on the survey.

Nationally, the surveys also were in agreement Monday at $2.263, up 2-2.5 cents from July 3. Both surveys showed U.S. motorists paying an average 2.5 cents more per gallon than last year.

“With July 4 now in the rearview mirror, gasoline prices in many states have advanced following the uptick in oil prices in late June,” Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, said. “While gas prices may rise slightly in some states in the week ahead, it will be a very mixed bag across the country as the recently rally in crude oil prices appears to have stalled for now.”

The five-county metro Albany area bucked the trend, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report, with an average $2.02 Monday, down a half-penny from July 3. That’s slightly more than 12 cents a gallon cheaper than last month, but its up 2 cents per gallon from last year.

That ranked Albany third-lowest among the top eight metro areas in the state, trailing Augusta (at $1.999, the only average below the $2 mark) and Macon ($2.013). The highest average was in Atlanta, where drivers in that metro area were paying $2.173 on Monday.

“Call it the summer blues at the pump — prices may fluctuate mildly in the weeks ahead, but we’ll be bouncing near the summer low price for some time — don’t expect much improvement in prices for the rest of the summer,” DeHaan said. “In fact, to counter that, if we see the Atlantic become more active hurricanewise, we could see more price support in both oil and gasoline prices, so keep that in mind.”

The most active period in the Atlantic usually gets started in late August. While forecasters have given a high likelihood to a hurricane season with average to above-average cyclone activity, the Atlantic’s been relatively quiet so far this hurricane season. On Monday, the National Hurricane Center noted there was a disorganized storm several hundred miles south/southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, but it gave the disturbance only a 20 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone over the next five days. The hurricane season started June 1 and continues through Nov. 30.