The past few months have shown just how volatile the market can be with the price of crude oil trading from more than $100 in June to $80 this month. While oil prices continue to show significant fluctuations week after week, prices fell this past Friday to settle at $82.26 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange—$3.12 less than the week prior.

Oil prices fell last week after U.S. oil inventories rose more than 4.2 million barrels for a total of 354 million barrels in U.S. stockpiles, according to the Energy Department. Stockpiles were forecast to decrease by approximately 500,000 barrels. As a result of the slow economic growth and lag in fuel demand, OPEC said they see no need to increase oil output, since there is plenty of supply in the market.

"No matter how optimistic investors try to be at this time, they can't ignore the sluggish economy seen both here in the U.S. and abroad," said Jessica Brady, spokesperson, AAA Auto Club South. "Retail gas prices have consistently decreased throughout the past few weeks and are expected to continue the decrease into the Labor Day holiday. Gas prices in the Southeast decreased an average of 5 cents last week."

The national average price of regular unleaded gasoline is $3.57 per gallon, a 2-cent decrease from last week. Florida’s average price of $3.56, Georgia’s average price of $3.50, and Tennessee’s average price of $3.42 all fell 5 cents from last week, respectively. Here in the 'Boro, several discounters are offering regular gas at $3.28 per gallon.