The Price of Oil is Going Down. So Why Haven’t Gas Prices?
Filling up your car or truck hasn't been much fun early this year. Economic uncertainty coupled with the war in Ukraine has caused crude oil prices to spike to near-record highs. But in the past few days, oil prices have fallen. So why haven't gasoline prices started to fall?
Just about one week ago, the price of oil was trading at over $130 a barrel. We were all wondering how high the price would go, and what we would be paying for gas later this spring and summer. But now the price of crude is below $100 a barrel, according to WHO. But despite that fall in price, the average price of gas has continued to go up, to around $4.32 per gallon nationwide.
WHO points out that there is nearly always a lag between the change in oil prices and the price we pay for gas at the pump. Unfortunately for consumers, that lag is always slower as prices come back down. A petroleum expert with GasBuddy says that when there is a spike in the price of crude oil, that spike is felt at gas stations around 2 to 5 days later. But when oil prices fall, gas stations aren't in nearly as much of a hurry to lower gas prices.
When oil prices rise so quickly, many gas stations will take a loss because they can't raise prices fast enough due to local competition. WHO reports that when prices drop, many stations will try and recoup some of those losses by slowly lowering their prices. So when will we see cheaper gas? Experts say that you can expect to see prices begin to fall in the next few days.