From one end of the county to the other, gas prices are inching toward $2 a gallon as Mississippi is seeing it’s lowest cost of gasoline since the tail end of the Great Recession.
Most gas stations in Vicksburg and Warren County heading into the weekend were selling a gallon of regular unleaded for $2.14.
“Oh man. I don’t even remember gas being this cheap,” said Ivory Myles of Vicksburg as he finished pumping more than 14 gallons of gas for less than $32.
Myles said he was taking advantage of low gas prices by filling up his truck.
“I try to fill up every time as long as it’s cheap like this. You never know when it’s going to go back up,” he said.
While gas at most stations was $2.14, prices ranged from $2.12 to $2.22, according to the online tracker Gas Price Watch.
Gas prices don’t look like they’re going anywhere for a while.
Going into the weekend, the average regular gas price in Mississippi was $2.14 — in line with where Vicksburg’s prices ended up late Friday — said Mike Wright, the vice president of public affirms for AAA covering Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Illinois and Kansas.
Gas prices seem to be leveling off across the country, and while sub-$2-a-gallon gas was probably on a lot of grown-up Christmas lists, a major dip is unlikely, Wright said.
“It’s almost impossible to say, but I think that we may have begun the leveling off period right now. We’re starting to see some minor movement upward here and there,” he said. “We may have bottomed out. I don’t think we’ll see any major increase or decrease over the next several weeks.”
It was the lowest statewide average in more than five years, he said.
“We were at a statewide average of $2.14 on May 12, 2009,” Wright said.
Last December, the price of gas hovered around the $3 mark, making many Mississippians long for prices to drop back to 2009 levels.
“We might as well enjoy it while it’s here,” he said.
Enjoying it is exactly what 79-year old Warren County resident Robert Mobley plans to do.
“I thought I’d never live to see it get down this low again,” Mobley said.
Mobley has heard reports of gas being sold for less than $2 a gallon at spots around the county, but “I haven’t found it yet,” he said.
“I’m just tickled to death with where it is right now,” Mobley said.
There are several factors at play in the falling cost of gas, but one big one has to do with the steep drop in crude oil prices on the global market. Oil had been trading at $107 per barrel in June after unrest in the Middle East; now it’s around $60. Friday, oil dipped to $55.27 a barrel.
Meanwhile, U.S. oil production is zooming. As this year draws to a close, U.S. drillers are producing 9 million barrels of oil per day, which is up 80 percent since 2008 and the highest rate of production in three decades.