Gas price averages may rise 5-10 cents this week

ALBANY — Temperatures are expected to drop to close to normal later this week. Gas prices, however, appear poised to continue their unseasonable rise, perhaps as much as a dime a gallon.

“Drivers are seeing pump prices increase in some markets due to higher demand and falling supply levels,” Mark Jenkins, a spokesman for AAA Auto Club Group, said. “It would not be a surprise to see gas prices rise 5-10 cents this week, since wholesale prices rose an average of 7 cents last week.”

Market experts say a combination of factors is resulting in unusual pain at the pump, which as of Monday had not impacted metro Albany quite as severely as some other areas.

On Monday, both the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report and the GasBuddy Fuel Insights surveys showed the five-county Albany MSA with the lowest average price among Georgia’s eight largest metro areas, with an average Monday that was within a dime of 2016 prices.

AAA had the Albany average pegged at $2.252, up 2.2 cents from last week and down 18 cents from last month. It was 9.8 cents higher than Nov. 6, 2016. GasBuddy’s survey has the Albany MSA at $2.229, up a penny in a week and 18.1 cents below last month. It had the year-to-year difference as being 7.4 cents higher. The highest average Monday was in Savannah, where drivers were paying $2.392.

Both surveys had Albany well below the state and national averages. AAA had Georgia motorists paying $2.347 Monday, down less than a penny in a week, 20.2 cents below last month and 10.7 cents higher than last year. GasBuddy showed an average statewide of $2.343, up 2.3 cents in a week, 16.1 cents below last month and 9.9 cents higher than last year.

Nationally, both surveys showed a significant average increase over the week. AAA had the average at $2.529, up 6.3 cents since the previous Monday, 1.5 cent higher than last month and 31 cents higher than last year. GasBuddy had the average at $2.53, up 6.5 cents in a week, 3.8 cents more than last month and 31.1 cents higher than in 2016.

“It’s been a frenzied week at fuel pumps across the country,” Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said, “but without a hurricane driving up prices, many motorists have been dumbfounded about what’s taking place with the unseasonable upward trend.

“Such a strong weekly upward move is rare in the fall but is explained by a confluence of factors, including oil prices hitting a new 2017 high, a major pipeline leak resulting in disruption, autumn refinery maintenance, but perhaps among the more surprising — robust demand for gasoline so late in the season.”

DeHaan said the unusually heavy demand “has magnified relatively mundane factors into a major gas price event for much of the United States and Canada.” There should a slowdown in the Great Lakes region, the one hardest hit with price spikes in the last week, with the completion of repairs to the Explorer Pipeline, he said, “but some additional bumps in the road ahead can be expected for motorists elsewhere.”

Jenkins said the long-term outlook is more favorable for consumers as “fall gasoline demand is expected to drop in November, which should prevent any significant spike in gas prices before the end of the year.”

There were no threats Monday to the Gulf oil and refinery area from tropical storms. The National Hurricane Center was tracking only one — Tropical Depression 19 — which was in the mid-Atlantic, several hundred miles east of Bermuda. That system was moving north and then was expected to veer to the northeast on Wednesday, with the early track taking it just north of the United Kingdom by the weekend. It was not projected to develop into a cyclone.