{"id":72331,"date":"2026-04-19T02:16:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/72331\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T02:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T02:16:23","slug":"gas-prices-poised-to-fall-as-oil-plunges-on-strait-of-hormuz-reopening-but-relief-could-take-months-kiro-7-news-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/72331\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas prices poised to fall as oil plunges on Strait of Hormuz reopening, but relief could take months \u2013 KIRO 7 News Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Relief is in sight for drivers stung by weeks of soaring gas prices, but analysts warn it won\u2019t come overnight.<\/p>\n

Oil prices plunged Friday after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz is \u201ccompletely open<\/a>\u201d to commercial shipping during a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Despite the drop in crude, prices at the pump have yet to catch up. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline remains above $4, and in the Seattle area, the average is still above $5.50 a gallon.<\/p>\n

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at\u00a0GasBuddy<\/a>, said drivers should begin seeing some relief starting this weekend as wholesale price declines filter through to retail stations. He predicted the national average could fall below $4 within days and drop to roughly $3.85 within the next week or two.<\/p>\n

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to pre-conflict levels. Before the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, the national average stood at about $2.98 a gallon.<\/p>\n

For Seattle-area drivers budgeting for the rest of the month, De Haan said prices should start ticking down soon, but don\u2019t expect a return to pre-war levels anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Oil prices drop 9% and Wall Street rallies to a record after Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz<\/p>\n

Oil prices dropped back to where they were in the early days of\u00a0the Iran war<\/a>, and U.S. stocks raced to\u00a0another record<\/a>\u00a0Friday after\u00a0Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is open<\/a>\u00a0again for commercial tankers carrying crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 leaped 1.2% to an all-time high and closed out a third straight week of big gains, its longest streak since Halloween. A freer flow of oil could take pressure off prices not only for gasoline but also\u00a0for groceries and all kinds of other products\u00a0<\/a>that get moved by vehicles. It could even ultimately help people pay less on credit-card interest and mortgage bills.<\/p>\n

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged as many as 1,100 points before paring its gain to 868, or 1.8%. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5%.<\/p>\n

The U.S. stock market has jumped more than 12% since hitting\u00a0a bottom in late March\u00a0<\/a>on hopes the United States and Iran can avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy despite\u00a0their war<\/a>. Friday\u2019s reopening of the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, which may only be temporary, is the clearest signal yet for optimism, and\u00a0President Donald Trump\u00a0<\/a>said late Thursday that the war \u201cshould be ending pretty soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude plunged immediately after Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that passage for all commercial vessels through the strait \u201cis declared completely open\u201d as a ceasefire appears to be holding in Lebanon. He said it would stay open for the remaining period of the ceasefire, and the price for U.S. oil dropped 9.4% to settle at $82.59 per barrel.<\/p>\n

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 9.1% to settle at $90.38 per barrel. To be sure, it remains above its $70 price from before the war, indicating some caution is still embedded in financial markets.<\/p>\n

Contributing:\u00a0The Associated Press<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com Relief is in sight for drivers stung by weeks of soaring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[9232,9815,26645,17917,26646,328,9818,18207,26647,26648,20177,26649,3401,2870,26261,26650,26651,26652,3593,26653,26654,897,6388,26655,8617,10950,26656,102,16243,26657,9135,5155,26658,213,14255,3402,6285,3594,26659,16494,26660,26661,26662,9189,2991,22524,3780,101,15951,2045,298,26663],"class_list":{"0":"post-72331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-increase","9":"tag-auto","10":"tag-automobile","11":"tag-background","12":"tag-benzine","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-car","15":"tag-cash","16":"tag-close-up","17":"tag-concept","18":"tag-costly","19":"tag-deficit","20":"tag-diesel","21":"tag-dollar","22":"tag-driver","23":"tag-empty","24":"tag-expensive","25":"tag-fill","26":"tag-fuel","27":"tag-fueling","28":"tag-fuelling","29":"tag-gas","30":"tag-gasoline","31":"tag-gun","32":"tag-hand","33":"tag-high","34":"tag-holding","35":"tag-hormuz","36":"tag-lack","37":"tag-male","38":"tag-man","39":"tag-money","40":"tag-nozzle","41":"tag-oil","42":"tag-person","43":"tag-petrol","44":"tag-petroleum","45":"tag-price","46":"tag-pricey","47":"tag-pump","48":"tag-purse","49":"tag-refill","50":"tag-refuel","51":"tag-refueling","52":"tag-service","53":"tag-shortage","54":"tag-station","55":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","56":"tag-tank","57":"tag-transport","58":"tag-transportation","59":"tag-wallet"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}