Despite a report by AAA that some gas stations are still low on fuel, the price of gasoline in Georgia continued the drop of the last two weeks after the sharp spike motorists experienced after Colonial Pipeline temporarily cut supplies to the east coast.
According to the weekly press release from Montrae Waiters, the spokeswoman for AAA – The Auto Club Group, Georgia drivers are now paying an average of $2.91 per gallon.
“Some holiday road trippers reported coming across a few gas stations with low fuel,” said Waiters. “However, this did not prevent motorists from finding an available pump and filling up.”
What’s happening at the national level?
According to AAA:
Since last Monday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has increased by 1 cent to $3.04. According to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), gas demand increased from 9.22 million barrels a day to 9.58 million barrels a day last week. Higher demand will likely contribute to fluctuations in pump prices through the holiday weekend, particularly as AAA predicts 34 million Americans will travel by car – an increase of 53% from last year. Learn more here.
The Colonial Pipeline outage
The recent surge in gasoline prices is a direct result of the panic-buying brought on by the successful cyberattack against Colonial Pipeline.
Colonial Pipeline, which supplies about 45 percent of the gasoline for the East Coast, was hit by a ransomware attack on Friday May 7.
The attack locked up the company’s computer systems, and the company shut down pipeline operations
Colonial reportedly payed a $5 million ransom to the hacker group DarkSide, and the pipeline company resumed the flow of gasoline on Wednesday May 12.
What are prices like in Cobb County?
The price of a gallon of regular unleaded in Cobb County is $2.947 at the time of this writing, about three cents more expensive than the statewide average.
It is always possible to find lower gas prices than the average by comparison shopping or using tools like http://gasbuddy.com.
How does AAA determine gas prices?
According to AAA:
AAA updates fuel price averages daily at www.GasPrices.AAA.com. Every day up to 130,000 stations are surveyed based on credit card swipes and direct feeds in cooperation with the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) and Wright Express for unmatched statistical reliability. All average retail prices in this report are for a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline.
