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Many stations in the Birmingham metro area have gas prices hanging around $3.39 to $3.49 a gallon, but down the road in
Tuscaloosa
: try $2.97 a gallon! "I think I may need to move," says one Hoover-area driver. While he may not be happy about the higher prices in
Birmingham
, fuel customers in T-Town are ecstatic.
"I was expecting it to go higher not lower so soon," says
Tuscaloosa
driver Denise Billups.
What caused this dramatic drop in price? "The supply situation has pretty much resolved now, the pipelines are operating at pretty much normal capacity, most of the stations have gas available now at pretty much their normal level of inventory," says Triple-A Alabama’s Clay Ingram.
So while gas in
Birmingham
is higher right now, it is expected to get down under $3 a gallon sometime soon.
"We still have some stations that have to sell what they have in inventory that they paid a much higher price for but as soon as that kind of gets caught up and gets corrected, we'll see much more even pricing across the board," adds Ingram.
How long can we expect these prices to go? UAB Economics Professor Dr. Sara Helms says it's hard to tell.
"We're not going back to the days of .99 cents a gallon gas, those aren't going to happen anymore, the world has changed," says Dr. Helms.
While that may be true, these new lower prices are still very welcomed by drivers.
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