Price At The Pump: Oil Prices Drop, Fuel Prices Not Expected To

Over the past week, oil prices continued the trend of moving lower. Despite the downward movement, as of Tuesday morning West Texas and Brent Crude were trading flat, to slightly higher at $69 and $72 per barrel respectively.

Patrick DeHaan with Gasbuddy.com said those figures continue to drop as the amount of risk associated with traveling through the Strait of Hormuz continues to drop.

“We've seen more tankers getting through the Strait with millions of barrels of oil. In addition, over the weekend, we saw OPEC basically fully roll back their production cuts, raising output again," DeHaan said. "Oil prices remain under pressure as a result of all of this, but for consumers, that drop in the price of oil isn't necessarily translating to lower refined product prices.”

International Tension Is Not The Only Issue The Oil Market Is Watching

While those oil prices have dipped, DeHaan said gasoline and diesel prices have remained elevated thanks to Ukraine’s continued attacks on Russian refineries which is eating into Russia's refining output. Another issue that could push fuel prices higher, hurricane season, which ramps up in the next four to five weeks.

“And while El Nino could reduce hurricane season, there is the continued threat of refining issues here now," DeHaan said. "As the pressure on oil may be fading away, more pressure is now starting downstream of that at the refining level. And that could continue to push or could start to push gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel prices a bit higher.”

Locally, the price of diesel fell in each Northwest state over the past week.