Follow The Library Media
The Library Media — National & World · National Desk
Gas Prices Fall Below $4 a Gallon for the First Time Since July
By Catalina Clarke
Catalina Clarke
Catalina Clarke is The Library Media’s editor-in-chief.
The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has fallen below $4 for the first time since July, closing a six-week slide that has brought drivers their cheapest fuel of the autumn — even as the West Coast continues to pay well above the national figure.
The average stood at $3.97 a gallon on Tuesday, according to GasBuddy data reported by NBC News, down from $3.98 on Monday, $4.03 a week earlier and $4.06 a month earlier. The reading ends a stretch in which the average had held above the $4 mark since the summer driving season.
The relief is real but partial. A year ago the national average was $3.03 a gallon, and on Election Day 2024 it stood at $3.30 — meaning drivers are still paying roughly 90 cents a gallon more than they did a year ago, and about 65 cents more than on the day voters last went to the polls in a presidential cycle. The $4 line is a psychological threshold more than an economic one, but it is the threshold the market has now crossed in the downward direction for the first time in four months.
GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan said prices have now fallen for six straight weeks, and he predicted the national average could reach about $3.90 by the end of November if current conditions hold. That forecast, like the trend itself, rests partly on crude oil. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 3.5% on Monday to $58.69 a barrel, its lowest level since August 13, while Brent crude fell 3.4% to $62.72. Both benchmarks remain above their 2025 lows — $54.71 for WTI on May 5 and $58.56 for Brent on May 7 — leaving room, in principle, for pump prices to ease further if crude stays soft.
NBC News attributes part of the drop to diplomacy rather than supply: President Trump’s November 5 comment that Iran’s leadership “wants to negotiate,” and his weekend remark that an attack on Iran did not look necessary, took some of the war premium out of oil markets after a U.S. military buildup near Iran that included the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. That causal reading is NBC’s; what the data establish on their own is the six-week decline and Monday’s sharp drop in crude.
The national average also conceals how unevenly the relief is distributed. Five states still average above $4 a gallon: California at $4.47, Hawaii at $4.35, Washington at $4.31, Oregon at $4.08 and Alaska at $4.06. For a California driver filling a 14-gallon tank, the difference between the state average and the national one is about $7 a fill-up — the West Coast premium that has persisted through every phase of this year’s price swings, driven by the region’s fuel standards, refinery capacity and distance from Gulf Coast supply.
For households, the direction matters more than the milestone. Six consecutive weeks of declines heading into the holiday travel season is the longest sustained easing drivers have seen this year, and forecasters see the trend continuing into December. Whether it survives depends on the same two forces that produced it: crude prices, and a Middle East situation that has repeatedly repriced them in both directions within days.
Reporting based on NBC News and GasBuddy data.
— Catalina Clarke, National Desk
From The Library — the estate of our family.
