Gasoline prices in McMinnville jumped more than 20 cents higher than the state average on Tuesday as gas stations scrambled to keep fuel for their customers.
With the Tennessee statewide average at $2.15 on Tuesday, according to GasBuddy.com, gasoline prices soared to $2.39 cents in McMinnville.
“Due to gasoline availability, prices will probably continue to rise slightly higher,” said Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy. “Over the past week, we’ve seen some gas outages and some higher gas prices. We’ve seen it rise 16 cents on average and that’s after it had been gently declining.”
Gasoline distribution has been disrupted by a main pipeline leak and spill in Alabama that has caused problems throughout the South. The pipeline is expected to restart Wednesday and it should to take a few days for the fuel supply chain to fully recover, the pipeline owner says.
Several local gas stations were without fuel briefly over the weekend. Co-op manager Josh Chandler says he had to pay extra freight from Memphis on Saturday to ensure his store didn’t run out.
“I had to go up a dime,” said Chandler of his fuel price. “That was just to cover the higher freight. That’s not a tremendous increase, but that pipeline bust has kind of put us in a bind here in the Southeast. It makes it tight because we all have to flood other suppliers.”
Chandler said Co-op had an extremely busy Saturday morning for fuel sales, likely from customers concerned there may be a shortage.
Even with the sudden rise in prices, the national average for gasoline was at its lowest level in eight years on Tuesday with an average price of $2.21. The highest prices in the past eight years came in 2012 when it cost $3.84 per gallon.
The distribution headache was created when a leak was found in Shelby County, Ala., at a gasoline line owned by Colonial Pipeline. The leak, which spilled between 252,000 gallons and 336,000 gallons of gasoline into a detention pond, was detected Sept. 9.
The leak has led to some gas shortages and higher prices at the pumps in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Governors across the South issued executive orders last week to suspend limitations on trucking hours, allowing drivers to stay on the road longer to bring fuel to gas stations.