The national average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline climbed above $4.50 a gallon last month as the war in the Persian Gulf roiled energy markets, according to OPIS data cited by The Wall Street Journal. That price level was the highest since July 2022.
Prices on the West Coast remain the highest in the nation, with California topping $6 a gallon during the spring peak. While pump prices are now easing from those highs, The Wall Street Journal reported that much of the country is still experiencing “sticker shock” at the filling station.
The price surge followed the outbreak of conflict in the Persian Gulf, a region that supplies roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil. The disruption to the Strait of Hormuz — a key maritime chokepoint for crude shipments — sent oil prices soaring and generated cascading increases at the retail pump across the United States.
Oil prices have come down in recent days as markets priced in the expectation of an agreement to restore traffic through the strait, The Wall Street Journal reported. With an interim deal now clinched, national-average retail gasoline prices are easing, though the Journal noted that they remain about $1 a gallon higher than before the fighting began.
The relief at the pump is uneven. States on the West Coast, which faced the steepest increases, are seeing the largest declines by dollar amount, according to OPIS. But states in the interior and the South, which had somewhat lower peak prices, are still well above their pre-war baselines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a benchmark for U.S. equities, stood at 51,492.55 on June 18, according to FRED data.