{"id":591605,"date":"2026-04-18T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/591605\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:17:14","slug":"gasoline-prices-could-fall-slowly-if-the-strait-of-hormuz-stays-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/591605\/","title":{"rendered":"Gasoline prices could fall slowly if the Strait of Hormuz stays open"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 After U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran\u2019s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz was fully open<\/a> to commercial vessels after almost seven weeks of war, oil prices plunged 10% and the stock market<\/a> rallied Friday.<\/p>\n

Motorists, hoping for relief at the pump<\/a>, wondered how quickly gasoline prices might fall once oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf were moving again. A gallon of regular gasoline cost $4.08 on average in the U.S. Friday, which was 37% more than before U.S. and Israel attacked Iran but down a few cents from a week ago.<\/p>\n

But when gas prices spike, they don\u2019t typically drop as quickly as the cost of crude. Even if Iran keeps the waterway open in the face of a U.S. blockade of its vessels, it still could take months for fuel prices to return to levels resembling those enjoyed before the war began Feb. 28, energy experts said. <\/p>\n

The slow speed at which oil tankers travel from ports to refineries, lingering security concerns, traffic in the strait and damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East are all playing a role in the elevated price of gasoline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe historical observation is that gasoline prices rise quickly but fall slowly, regardless of the particular causes of the increase,\u201d said Mark Barteau, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, one has to take into account the time it takes for the steps that have to happen once tankers sail through the straits \u2013 for example, sailing time to refineries on other continents, time to ramp up refinery operations, and time to transport some refined products by tanker to the continent where they will be used,\u201d Barteau said. \u201cThere is also tendency to hedge bets because of doubts about whether and how quickly that restoration might occur, and whether further disruptions are possible along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, some energy analysts were optimistic that gas prices would gradually decline.<\/p>\n

Hope for lower gasoline prices<\/p>\n

Gasoline prices were already falling slightly after last week\u2019s announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, according to motor club federation AAA. <\/p>\n

Following the Strait of Hormuz announcement, oil prices fell by $10 to $12 per barrel, which generally translates into a decrease of 25 or 30 cents per gallon of gas, said Michael Lynch, distinguished fellow at Energy Policy Research Foundation, a non-partisan research institution focused on energy and economics. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen overnight, but within a week or two, we could be down 50 cents a gallon easily, if this holds,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cAnd part of it is, there\u2019s a lot of tankers ready to go. And if they all come out, then that balances the market very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of Friday\u2019s news, \u201cevery state will start seeing gas price decreases accelerate at a pace of probably 1 to 3 cents a gallon for every day or two,\u201d said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, in a webcast. \u201cAnd that could continue for at least a couple of weeks.\u201d <\/p>\n

DeHaan estimated that the national average for a gallon of regular gas could reach $3.45 to $3.65 by Memorial Day. But he acknowledged that returning to lower prices could take a while. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt might take until later this year or early next year to really fully normalize and for some of these surcharges and impacts to reverse and disappear,\u201d De Haan said. <\/p>\n

Traffic and trepidation<\/p>\n

If an agreement to end the war is reached, it could take at least four months for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to go back to normal, said Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, you still have potential mines that have to be removed or detonated, you have over 150 tankers that have been anchored in and around the strait, which is causing a traffic jam, and we still have shipping rates that are still high because of lack of shipping capacity and war rate insurance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The leaders of France and the U.K.<\/a> welcomed word of the strait\u2019s reopening but said they would keep pushing for a way to permanently restore freedom of navigation for vessels that rely on the narrow passage off Iran\u2019s coast, through which about one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil typically travels. <\/p>\n

Ship owners would have to be convinced to trust the Americans and Iranians, \u201cand that seems like it\u2019s a hard hill to climb,\u201d Lynch, of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, said. \u201cI certainly wouldn\u2019t want to do it. I wouldn\u2019t wanna be the first ship through or even the first five ships through, but somebody will do it. There\u2019s a lot of money on the table and somebody\u2019s going to grab it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Iranians are cooperating, the mines should not be a problem, because Iran has a sense of where the mines are, Lynch said. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, that raises the issue, are the Iranians going to cooperate, or what do they want to cooperate?\u201d he asked. \u201cAre they going to demand a couple-million dollars a ship, as is talked about? Or is Trump going to say \u2018that\u2019s not acceptable,\u2019 and then what\u2019s the next step after that?\u201d<\/p>\n

If the strait remains open, and ships loaded with oil leave the Persian Gulf, it could take weeks for those heavy, slow-moving ships to reach their destinations. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think that once the strait opens, it\u2019s fine. We\u2019re done. It\u2019ll be better really fast,\u201d said Richard Joswick, global head of near-term oil analysis at S&P Global Energy. \u201cIf you open the strait today to get a ship and bring it around and take it to Europe and run a refinery, turn it into products, you\u2019re talking 10 weeks of a lag time here. It will be two to three months before things can start to get back to normal after the straight re-opens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damage to energy infrastructure in the Middle East<\/p>\n

Many oil production facilities were damaged<\/a> in the Middle East, including refineries in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and oil tanker terminals in the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Some repairs has been made, but damage remains.<\/p>\n

In addition, some countries slowed down or halted production<\/a> during the war, because without the ability to ship crude through the Strait of Hormuz, their ships and storage tanks filled up with stranded oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a light switch. Everyone\u2019s impatient and saying, \u2018Go, go go,\u2019\u201d De Haan said. \u201cBut it will take time to get these flows of oil through the Middle East fired back up again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once an oil well is turned off, the pressure within the well could change, and it can take time to restart the flow. But that might not be a problem in some Middle East oil fields, where production can be resumed quickly, Lynch said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Saudis have done that a bunch of times. They ramp up by 2 or 3 million barrels a day, almost overnight, and there\u2019s no problem with the wells that have been shut in for months and sometimes years,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 After U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran\u2019s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,12,101,3321,69620,793,801,1570,228242,258276,129,139727,228730,66067,111,258277,210369,795,792,1681,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-591605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-energy-industry","12":"tag-energy-markets","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-iran-government","16":"tag-iran-war","17":"tag-michael-lynche","18":"tag-middle-east","19":"tag-oil-and-gas-industry","20":"tag-patrick-de-haan","21":"tag-persian-gulf","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-richard-joswick","24":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","25":"tag-u-s-news","26":"tag-united-states-government","27":"tag-waterways","28":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}