To make the 70-mile round-trip drive to work at Mueller in Chattanooga from his home in Higdon, Ala., Marty Higdon fills up the 8-gallon tank on his Chevrolet Metro every four days.
A year ago, Higdon was spending more than $20 a week on gas. But with fuel prices down 39 percent from last fall, Higdon topped off Monday in Lookout Valley for only $11.
“It’s put another $10 or so a week in my pocket and that’s great for workers like me,” he said.
Gas prices fell another 3.1 cents per gallon in Chattanooga last week to an average of $1.90 per gallon, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga released Monday. Chattanooga gas prices dipped to a similar low at the start of the year and fell even lower briefly during the depths of the recession in 2008. But experts expect that gas prices below $2 a gallon should last longer this fall.
“The big difference this autumn is that we’re probably going to see gas stay below $2 a gallon in places like Chattanooga for some time, probably for the rest of the year and maybe into early 2016,” said Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst. “It depends, of course, on what happens in the oil markets that have been volatile in the past couple of weeks. But there continues to be downward pressure on oil prices, which in turn will continue to weigh on the nation’s average gasoline price.”