GAS PRICES FALL
Chattanooga gas prices fall to 7-year low to start 2016
Chattanooga motorists are starting the new year with the cheapest gas since 2009, according to surveys of 170 area service stations by GasBuddy.com.
The gas price web site said Monday the average price of regular gas in Chattanooga fell another 1.4 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $1.68 per gallon at the start of this week.
Nationwide, the average price of gas fell .5 cents per gallon in the past week to $1.99 per gallon.
Chattanooga gas prices average 7.4 cents per gallon less than a month ago and are 30 cents per gallon less than the start of 2015. Gas in Chattanooga on Monday was priced as low as $1.58 per gallon at a Sam’s Club station on Lee Highway and a nearby Shell station on Jenkins Road before edging up a penny or two a gallon later in the day.
Chattanooga prices also are 4 cents per gallon below the statewide average for all Tennessee stations and are at the lowest level in nearly seven years. Gas prices fell in Chattanooga briefly during the Great Recession to as low as $1.44 per gallon in late 2008. But current prices are the lowest since the winter of 2009.
“Talk about starting the New Year off right,” Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy’s senior petroleum analyst, said Monday. “The national average at $1.99 is a great way to begin 2016, and over 20 cents lower than where we started 2015. The good news is that we could see even more price drops before the seasonal lift that will likely begin as we push towards spring.”
Gas is likely to get cheaper through this month, oil industry analysts said.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February fell Monday by $1.29 per barrel, or 3.4 percent, to $36.76 a barrel. The decline snapped four sessions of higher oil prices, plus an early morning rally that initially pushed oil prices up by 3 percent in early trading Monday.
U.S. oil futures remain down more than 30 percent since the end of last year. But analysts cautioned against reading too much into current supplies and inventories after the unusual holiday period.
“Prices over the next two weeks will not be indicative of the longer term trend for 2016,” said Daniel Ang, an analyst with Phillip Futures.” Volumes will remain low due to the holiday season.”
But DeHan said he expects gas prices to remain low or lower in price until this spring when higher-priced summer grades are required.
“For any Americans that made resolutions to try and spend less at the pump this year, I think they will be in good shape to achieve that,” DeHaan said. “The fundamentals of oil remain weak which will contribute to low oil prices for some time, while gasoline demand will likely move lower now with the holidays behind us, putting downward pressure on gasoline prices.”