Some may have noticed that the price of gasoline spiked this week, almost overnight.
According to the AAA’s Fuel Gauge report, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline in the metro Atlanta area shot up from just more than $2.46 a gallon Thursday to $2.49 Friday.
Gregg Laskoski, a spokesman for AAA Autoclub South, said it is "quite startling" for gas prices to rise so quickly nationwide.
"We’re seeing price increases of 2 cents or more in just 24-hour periods," Laskoski said. "That is very unusual because most of the time the typical change from one day to the next is usually measured by tenths of a cent either up or down."
Pump prices at stations around Gainesville ranged Friday from $2.45 a gallon up to $2.55, according to the Gas Buddy Web site.
Laskoski said it is also strange because fuel prices typically go down in October.
"Kids are going back to school, families aren’t planning vacations when kids are in school and that’s one of the reasons why gasoline prices tend to drop," Laskoski said.
The price jump is due to the increasing cost of crude oil.
"What’s happening now is crude oil prices have really taken off," Laskoski said. "They’re trading at over $80 a
barrel, so they’re close to the highest price we’ve seen all year."
The higher prices are related to the strength of the U.S. dollar as well.
"It’s high because the dollar is weak," Laskoski said. "When the dollar weakens that becomes kind of a red flag for speculators. They will go into commodities markets as a hedge against the weak dollar and crude oil is the biggest commodity market that we have."
The last time gas prices went up in the fourth quarter was in 2007, which lead to some unwelcome price increases throughout the next year.
"Crude prices continued to climb higher and higher with each consecutive month and by July of ’08, we saw crude oil hit a record high of $147 a barrel and gasoline prices were over $4 a gallon," Laskoski said. "I’m not saying that’s going to happen here but there are some striking parallels."
In 2007 as well, the higher prices stemmed from the weakness of the dollar.
"There’s really nothing extraordinary happening from either the supply or demand side of the equation," Laskoski said.