After weeks of teetering below the $4 mark, drivers woke up to, on average, a 6-cent spike on unleaded gas. Although oil prices have dropped below $100 per barrel, fears about flooding in the Southeast are behind rising gas prices, according to industry experts.
“This is a speculative situation which we hope will go away soon,” said Georgia Association of Convenience Stores president Jim Tudor.
He said prices are rising on the fear that flooding will affect refineries along the Mississippi River. A giant Exxon facility on the river in Baton Rouge, La., feeds Atlanta’s gasoline pipeline. Some are worried refineries are susceptible to damage, which would slow production.
But many drivers have had enough.
“We pay our taxes and the gas goes up. We kill bin Laden and the gas prices go up. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around,” driver O’Kelly Dryden told Channel 2 consumer investigator Jim Strickland.
Tudor said it is important to remember that the fears over flooding have not come to fruition.
“If the market drops, and some of these speculators get burned, frankly, it couldn’t happen to a nicer group,” said Tudor.
