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Gas prices reach below $2 in Youngstown
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Mike Ash of Columbiana fills up at Jordan’s Market on Market Street in Youngstown. Ash was able to fill his Honda CR-V on Monday for just under $25 with gas prices at $1.99 a gallon.
By Kalea Hall
Youngstown
The line at Jordan’s Market rarely stopped Monday morning.
Customers, such as Mike Ash, were happy to spend just $1.99 a gallon on regular gas.
“I’m loving it,” said Ash, a Columbiana resident who drives all over to deliver home health care. “It gives me more money.”
Jordan’s, Shell and Gateway Gas Mart on Market Street were all competing for customers with their gas at just under $2 a gallon Monday morning.
“I just wanted to bring the customers in,” said Abdalla Shakhatreh, owner of Jordan’s Market. He listed his price at $1.99 on Sunday morning. He added gas pumps to his market over the summer.
Like many customers at the pumps, Janet Green, who filled her tank at Jordan’s, could not remember when she last saw prices below $2 a gallon.
“This is really a blessing,” she said.
Some customers said gas hasn’t been below $2 since before 2000, but Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy.com, said the nation had prices this low in late 2008.
“People don’t have great memories of gas prices because they are constantly changing,” DeHaan said.
Prices have dropped this low because the cost of oil has fallen. The Saudi oil producers have started a price war by selling oil for cheap, DeHaan said.
Neil Rauchfuss of Youngstown was happy to buy gas at Gateway Gas Mart for $1.99 a gallon, but he also believes the price of gas should have come down a lot sooner with the price of oil.
“I definitely wish it was sooner,” he said. “You can utilize that money somewhere else.”
DeHaan explained that it takes time for the price at the pump to actually change even if the oil price has been down.
On Monday, the national average on Gasbuddy.com was about $2.26 and the Ohio average was $2.02. Ohio had the fifth-lowest average regular-gas price in the nation Monday. Missouri led the list with an average of $1.92.
AAA’s Ohio average on Monday was listed at $2.03 compared with the average a year ago of $3.41. AAA listed Youngstown-Warren’s average at about $2.18 on Monday compared with $3.36 a year ago.
DeHaan said prices should remain in the low $2 range for the next couple of months and increase in the spring and summer.
“A lot of it hinges on the Saudis holding that line,” DeHaan said.
By Monday afternoon, Jordan’s upped its price to $2.09 a gallon.