Gas prices decline for 4th straight week

Gasoline prices in Chattanooga declined last week for the fourth consecutive week.

The average price of regular gas in Chattanooga fell 4.7 cents a gallon to $3.09 per gallon, according to GasBuddy’s survey of 170 stations in Chattanooga. Prices in Chattanooga are 17.1 cents per gallon lower than a month ago and 23.4 cents per gallon below where they were a year ago.

According to GasBuddy price reports, the cheapest station in Chattanooga was priced at $2.75 per gallon Monday at the Sam’s Club on Lee Highway.

Gas prices declined last week as interest rates rose and the outlook for fuel demand eased, but Saturday’s attacks by Hamas in Israel shook up markets over the weekend. Crude oil futures spiked 4% Monday to $86 a barrel, after surging more than 5% at one point Sunday night.

Nationwide, gas prices fell by an average of more than 10 cents a gallon last week. Chattanooga fuel prices remained well below the U.S. average of $3.59 per gallon.

“At long last, the decline in gas prices that we’ve been waiting to see has arrived, and the locomotive of falling prices has only recently started on a downhill, gaining momentum,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a report Monday. “However, some new caution signs have emerged with the recent attacks on Israel, potentially destabilizing a sensitive region.”

De Haan still forecasts further declines in gas prices nationwide over the next six weeks.

“Even with oil prices rising as a reaction to the attacks, I remain optimistic the national average could decline another 25-45 cents by late November,” he said.