Price at the Pump: Oil, Fuel Prices Continue To Drop

The path to peace between the U.S. and Iran is a bumpy road.

But despite that, oil investors are still feeling pretty good about how things are looking in the Middle East. To start the week, oil prices were down roughly 3% which has pushed fuel prices lower.

“Gasoline and diesel prices fell in virtually every state over the last week as well," said Patrick Dehaan with Gasbuddy.com. "Gasoline prices nationally down about 14 cents a gallon in the last week. The national average now back below the $4 a gallon mark for gasoline and diesel back below $5 a gallon. So, certainly good news that the prices can now for five straight weeks. That's a trend that may now continue.”

In early Tuesday trade, West Texas was trading flat at $73 per barrel, while Brent Crude was down to $77 a barrel.

DeHaan added with the U.S. Treasury Department giving the green light Monday allowing Iran to sell oil under a 60-day license, that could likely lead to bigger declines the weeks to come. He added oil prices are now in the ballpark of what we saw before the start of the war.

Does that mean consumers will see fuel prices drop to levels we saw before the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran?

“We probably won't see gasoline and, well, potentially diesel declining back to pre-war levels for still several months, if at best. We'll have to see how the situation progresses, but there probably will still be a lot of time involved to see refined products slipping to their pre-war levels,” DeHaan said.

When it comes to Northwest fuel prices, Washington's diesel dropped 20 cents in the past week to $6.23 a gallon, Idaho’s price dropped 22 cents to $4.97 a gallon, and Oregon’s rate for diesel fell 19 cents a gallon to $5.65.