City gas prices rise, but remain lowest in Tennessee

The new year began with higher prices at the gas pump, but Chattanooga motorists still enjoy the cheapest gas anywhere in Tennessee, Georgia or Alabama, according to service station surveys by the website GasBuddy.com.

The Exxon station at Highway 153 and Gann Road was selling gas Monday at $2.02 per gallon — the lowest of any station in Tennessee and one of the cheapest in the South.

Average retail gasoline prices in Chattanooga rose 0.6 cents per gallon in the first week of 2018, increasing to an average of $2.16 per gallon Sunday, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga.

Chattanooga gas prices average 32 cents per gallon less than the U.S. average price for regular gas of $2.48 per gallon.

Chattanooga gas prices were 7.7 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and 48 cents per gallon more than two years ago. But gas prices are still 98 cents a gallon below what they were at this time five years ago.

“As unseasonable cold finally breaks across the country, what may not break as quickly is the unseasonably high gas prices,” said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy. “Prices at the pump are higher than they were nearly all of last summer, mainly because oil prices remain high and due to the extreme cold weather that caused some snafus at refiners. Inventories of refined products have seen an impressive build in the last week, and there’s a strong likelihood that we may soon begin to see the national average falling toward the end of the month.”