With the restoration of the gas shipments along the repaired Colonial Pipeline in Alabama, gas prices fell last week in Chattanooga despite an increase in fuel prices nationwide.
The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Chattanooga on Sunday was $2.11 per gallon, down 6.1 cents per gallon from a week earlier, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga.
Nationwide, GasBuddy surveys show the average price of gas rose 1.5 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.22 per gallon.
Including the change in gas prices in Chattanooga during the past week, the average local price of gas Sunday was 17.4 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 11.4 cents per gallon higher than a month ago.
The Colonial pipeline that carries 1.3 million gallons of gas a day from Houston to the Southeast and East Coast markets was shut down for two weeks last month due to a pipeline leak south of Birmingham, Ala. That helped push up gas prices in Tennessee by nearly 20 cents per gallon before a bypass around the leaking pipeline was built and connected to restore gas deliveries in Chattanooga and other markets served by Colonial.
The U.S. market for gas was influenced by the announcement last week that OPEC had come to a decision on cutting back oil production.
"Oil prices surged on the news which fueled gas prices to jump as well, but several days after the news broke, there's reason to doubt OPEC's sincerity of a possible production cut," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. "In addition, Hurricane Matthew is a major storm worth monitoring as it heads for the East Coast, perhaps to areas affected by the Colonial Pipeline outage last month. Should fuel availability and power outages arise from Matthew,"
The cheapest gas today in Chattanooga is offered along Signal Mountain Road and Mountain Creek Road where five stations are selling regular gas at $1.92 per gallon.
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| Chattanooga Gas Prices provided by GasBuddy.com |