LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County Thursday recorded its largest decrease since a 1.5-cent drop on Jan. 9, falling 1.3 cents to $6.035.
The average price is 3.3 cents more than one week ago, 78.4 cents higher than one month ago and $1.125 greater than one year ago. It is 45.9 cents less than the record $6.494 set on Oct. 5, 2022.
The Orange County average price recorded its largest decrease since a 1.7-cent drop on Jan. 9, falling 1.5 cents to $5.961. It is 3.5 cents more than one week ago, 72.4 cents higher than one month ago and $1.101 greater than one year ago.
The Orange County is 49.8 cents less than the record $6.459 set on Oct. 5, 2022.
Prices were rising slightly in line with seasonal norms before the joint U.S./Israel attack on Iran on Feb. 28 sent oil prices higher and drastically accelerated increases at the gas pump.
The streak of increases to the national average price was extended to 12 days, but barely, rising two-tenths of a cent to $4.166, its highest amount since Aug. 2, 2022. It has increased 18.6 cents over the past 12 days, including 2.4 cents on Wednesday.
The national average price is 8.5 cents more than one week ago, 68.8 cents higher than one month ago and 93.1 cents greater than one year ago. It is 85 cents less than the record $5.016 set on June 14, 2022.
“Wholesale prices are volatile, but retail prices are averaged,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which provides real- time gas price information from more than 150,000 stations, wrote on the social platform X Wednesday in response to a question about “why do gas prices go up immediately on bad news, but take forever to come down on good news?”
“Stations raise prices quickly when costs jump to avoid losses, but when costs fall, they lower prices gradually as they sell through higher-priced inventory,” De Haan wrote. “So instead of prices bouncing wildly, what drivers see is actually a slower climb — and an even slower descent.”
De Haan wrote on X at 5:24 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time Tuesday that the agreement between the United States and Iran reached Tuesday on a two-week ceasefire in their war that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz means “gas prices could start reversing nationally in 48 hours or so — by a few cents every day.”
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