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Area Gas Price Below National Average

Posted on: Monday, 3 October 2005, 21:00 CDT

By Dan Shope, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Oct. 4--The price of gasoline in the Lehigh Valley has fallen below the national average for the first time since before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

The local price of regular was $2.84 per gallon Monday, below the $2.94 reported nationally by AAA.

Theresa Podguski, director of public affairs for AAA East Penn, said most of the oil pipelines serving the East are open. The gasoline markets, she said, are adjusting into non-crisis mode.

Lehigh Valley gas prices are now among the cheapest in the country. "Oklahoma is the lowest in the nation at $2.78 per gallon of unleaded," Podguski said.

Local prices actually rose 4 cents a gallon compared to last week, but the increase was less than the national average hike. Gas prices here had dropped each of the previous three weeks.

Lehigh Valley's gas prices have typically been below the national average. But the week after Katrina, gas prices in the Valley jumped 67 cents per gallon of regular, 21 cents more than the national average increase.

The local price surged to a record of $3.23 a gallon on Sept. 7, making the Lehigh Valley one of the most expensive places in the country for a fill-up.

The main reason for the dramatic shift, Podguski said, was that Hurricane Katrina disrupted the flow of gasoline, heating oil and other fuels along the 5,550-mile Colonial Pipeline. Snaking from Houston to Linden, N.J., the pipeline delivers about 20 percent of the fuel used east of the Mississippi River. That pipeline has been reopened, as have others such as TEPPCO Products to New York.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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TPP,

Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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