According to an oil analyst, gasoline prices have already peaked in the summer and are likely to fall further in the fall.
On Wednesday, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline was $3.46 a gallon, five cents less than a month ago and $0.37 less than a year ago, according to AAA data.
“With gasoline inventories sufficient to meet demand through Labor Day, I expect retail prices to remain stable at around $3.50 a gallon for the next few weeks and then decline in October,” Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.
Latest government data show that gasoline demand fell last week, while refining activity increased and fuel stocks rose.
Lipow said the main reason that could lead to a rise in prices at the pump would be a disruption in oil supplies due to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
“If that doesn’t happen, gasoline prices will have reached their summer peak,” Lipow said.
Even in California, where gasoline is the most expensive in the country, prices are down about $0.16 from the previous week and $0.78 from a year ago, when a tropical storm hit the state and caused supply disruptions.
Meanwhile, oil prices have fallen about 10 percent since early July, even after rising more than 2 percent on Wednesday amid a general market recovery and reports that Israel was preparing for a retaliatory strike from Iran following the recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran.
Iran accounts for just over three percent of global crude oil production, with production amounting to about three million barrels of crude oil per day.
West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) prices were above $75 a barrel on Wednesday, while Brent (BZ=F), the international benchmark, also rose, trading just above $78 a barrel. WTI hit its yearly low on Monday, falling below $73 a barrel.
Brent prices are expected to “rise back to $80 a barrel by the end of the year,” analysts at London-based consulting firm Capital Economics wrote on Tuesday.
“Currently, our main scenario assumes that the U.S. economy avoids a hard landing and that oil demand in the U.S. and China does not begin to decline sharply,” the company added.
OPEC+ recently reiterated its plan to roll back some of its voluntary production cuts in October, but Saudi Arabia left open the possibility of pausing or reversing production increases if the market does not support it.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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