| Gas prices hit record level { March 12 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.times-journal.com/report.lasso?wcd=1920http://www.times-journal.com/report.lasso?wcd=1920
Gas prices hit record level
By Kelly Townsend The Times-Journal
Published March 12, 2004
Alabama motorists paid record prices at the pump this week for a gallon of gasoline and can expect even higher prices as the vacation season arrives.
Prices rose to a record statewide average of $1.631 for a gallon of unleaded Tuesday.
In the last two weeks, the owner of Mitchell Oil Inc., Bill Mitchell, has seen a 10-cents rise in the price of gas and expects it to continue going up.
Mitchell, who supplies eight stores in Fort Payne and at least 22 throughout the rest of DeKalb County, said his prices are now at $1.69.
DeKalb County Sheriff Cecil Reed said he has been alarmed by the rising gas prices and has found gas is a lot cheaper in Georgia.
“I went over to a gas station in the state of Georgia, on the other side of Ider, and found that prices were $1.51. Until prices start to decrease here I am going to buy my gas over there,” Reed ais.
Spokesman for the American Automobile Association in Alabama, Greg Womble, said, “We’re in new territory. We’re in the great beyond, and unfortunately it’s only the beginning,” Womble said.
Among Alabama’s biggest cities, the price Tuesday was up to $1.66 in Huntsville. In the Birmingham area, it was $1.64 — three cents below the city’s previous high set March 20,203.
Along the Gulf Coast, the price was $1.62 in Biloxi, Miss., $1.68 in Pensacola and $1.63 in New Orleans, according to the AAA.
Womble predicted prices could hit as high as $1.80 soon.
“Every day consumption is higher than ever, volume is higher than ever. That’s a natural recipe for higher prices when you have high usage combined with a tightening oil supply,” Womble said.
Industry officials said the price increase is being driven by a variety of factors, chief among them tight global supplies of crude oil. The national average of $1.73 per gallon on Tuesday was a penny below the previous all-time high, established Aug. 25, 2003.
The U.S. Energy department predicted motorists will pay record prices for gasoline this spring and summer. Regular-grade gasoline will reach a monthly nationwide average of $1.83 a gallon in the spring, and will average $1.74 a gallon from April through September, the department said Tuesday in its monthly forecast.
“We’re a mobile society, we’re going to drive regardless of the price,” Womble said. “It doest affect people’s budgets, but we’ve done studies that show very few people will cancel plans for a driving vacation based on the price of gasoline.
— The Associated Press contributed to this story
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