Gas prices up in Albany, may be leveling in Georgia

ALBANY — The average cost of a gallon of gas in metro Albany rose about a nickel during the week in which a disastrous wind storm ripped across Southwest Georgia.

The five-county Albany MSA on Monday, however, was still the second-lowest of the eight Georgia metro areas included in the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report, trailing only Augusta, which was at $2.164 a gallon, and barely slipping below Macon, which was at $2.207. The highest metro average was Atlanta, where motorists were paying $2.286 Monday.

Still, the metro Albany increase outpaced the state of Georgia as a whole. The state’s motorists were paying just under $2.26, less than a penny more than last week, according to both the AAA report and GasBuddy’s Fuel Insights report. Each of those organizations surveys thousands of retail gas outlets throughout the United States for their reports.

Georgia motorists were paying much less than the national average Monday, which the surveys pegged at just under $2.37 a gallon, up 2.5-3 cents in a week and more than 17 cents since last month. Prices nationally are also more than 39 cents per gallon higher than this time last year when the U.S. average was $1.977.

Georgia motorists Monday were paying about 38.5 cents more per gallon than last year, and metro Albany drivers were paying slightly less than that, 38.3 cents more than the $1.822 average on Jan. 9, 2016.

While prices have been moving up steadily since OPEC, and later non-OPEC, nations announced late in 2016 that they would curtail production this year, Gregg Laskoski, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said market conditions from a pair of winter storms may bring at least a short-term halt to the increases.

“If there’s ever a time one could expect gasoline prices to flat-line, this week should be one of them,” Laskoski said. “Given the Department of Energy report last week of a huge build in gasoline inventory followed by the brutal 1-2 punch from Winter Storms Helena and Iras, that brings immediate and downward pressure on fuel prices.

Between the two storms they’ve brought nearly a foot of rain, mudslides and rock slides to California and Nevada; snow, sleet and freezing rain in the Pacific northwest; snow and ice storms in the Plains and upper Midwest; and winter advisories in effect from the Deep South all the way to the Northeast where nearly a foot of snow brought travel to a crawl on the I-95 corridor from North Carolina to Portland, Maine.”

Mark Jenkins, spokesman for AAA, also expressed optimism that the gas increases may level off, noting that prices in Georgia, Tennessee and Florida have been slightly up to stable over the past week, including a slight drop in Florida.

“Frozen gas prices are a good sign that we could soon see some relief at the pump,” Jenkins said. “Now that the holidays are over and cold weather is moving across much of the country, gasoline demand should drop, and prices could too.”

Jenkins noted that oil prices, which are up about 40 percent compared to last year, will continue to drive prices at the pump. Last week, he noted, the price of U.S. crude averaged $53.34 a barrel, well above the $34.63 this time last year.

While pump prices plunged 17 cents in January 2016, that drop was accompanied by a $10 decline in oil prices. If oil prices remain steady this month, he said, pump-price adjustments should follow a more modest decline, with 5-10 cents being the best that can be expected.