Gas prices continue push down toward the $3 per gallon mark: Analysis

More than half the country is back under the $3 per gallon mark at the gas pump on Monday, as the national average gas price is at $3.13 per gallon.

The average price is down 5.5 cents per gallon for Virginia drivers, to $3.07 per gallon, according to the tracking website GasBuddy.

The national average price of diesel has declined 1.3 cents in the last week and stands at $3.56 per gallon.

There had been a brief bump in prices last week with the political tensions in the Middle East pushing oil prices upward, but those pressures have lessened “due in part to sources saying Israel has agreed not to attack Iran’s oil infrastructure,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

“With the potential of an attack on Iran’s oil infrastructure decreasing as a result, the risk calculus for oil is decreasing, and with continued economic weakness in China providing bearish sentiment, oil prices late last week slipped back below the $70 per barrel mark, opening the door for a longer decline to potentially return to the national average,” De Haan said.

“I’m hopeful that the downward trend will continue again this week for a majority of Americans as we see the average price of gasoline start to make a targeted effort to fall below the $3-per-gallon mark for the first time since 2021,” De Haan said.