Price At The Pump: Oil, Fuel Prices Expected To Continue To Drop

Oil prices have been on a steady downward trajectory for much of the past month, and that trend looks to continue in the final days of the year. As of Tuesday morning, West Texas Crude and Brent Crude were both trading lower by more than 1%, with West Texas trading around $55 per barrel, and Brent below the $60 per barrel mark. And that drop in oil prices means American motorists are benefiting.

“Wo are looking at for the third straight week, the national average price of gasoline falling to a multi-year low just ahead of Christmas," said Matt McClain with Gasbuddy.com. "The average standing at its lowest level since March 12th of 2021, sitting at $2.85 a gallon as of this very moment. And that is about a weekly savings of nearly $400 million nationwide compared to just this time last year when prices on average were about 12.8 cents per gallon higher.”

Prices Expected To Continue To Fall

McClain said investors are encourage by the potential of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine as well as OPEC production increases. On top of that, he noted refineries in the United States are running a “peak capacity”. McClain added GasBuddy.com expects oil prices, thus fuel prices, to continue moving lower into mid January.

“We don't see an issue with a big asterisk that anything geopolitically can always create a jitteriness there, which could throw the whole forecast out the window," McClain said. "But for the moment, we don't see anything out there in the horizon that's going to start driving prices upward.”