{"id":718469,"date":"2026-04-10T16:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/718469\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T16:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:24:16","slug":"why-3-gas-wont-come-back-anytime-soon-even-with-a-ceasefire-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/718469\/","title":{"rendered":"Why $3 gas won’t come back anytime soon, even with a ceasefire in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the hours before President Trump announced a temporary ceasefire<\/a> with Iran on Tuesday, the average gas price in the United States edged up to $4.14 per gallon of regular fuel, according to AAA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Days later, that price \u2014 now $4.15 per gallon<\/a> \u2014 is still fluctuating.<\/p>\n

Millions of cash-strapped Americans are probably hoping that the current ceasefire \u2014 a two-week pause to hammer out a lasting peace deal \u2014 will mean a swift return to where gas was before the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran on Feb. 28: under $3 per gallon.<\/p>\n

After all, haven\u2019t the Iranians agreed as part of the ceasefire to lift their monthlong blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively choked off one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply? And if oil starts flowing out of the Persian Gulf again, doesn\u2019t that mean gas prices will plummet?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, no \u2014 or at least not anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no going back to what we had,\u201d Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody\u2019s Analytics, told USA Today<\/a>. \u201cAt least not this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why you can expect more pain at the pump in the weeks and months ahead.<\/p>\n

Has the Strait of Hormuz really reopened?<\/p>\n

The international benchmark for oil prices is called Brent crude. Brent is a type of oil, mostly from the North Sea. Traders effectively place bets on the future price of oil by buying and selling Brent futures on financial markets, which in turn affects the price of oil itself. Real-world events drive their decisions to buy or sell.<\/p>\n

When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices rose. If Iran reopens the strait, oil prices should theoretically fall. Brent crude is easy to refine into gasoline, so gas prices tend to rise and fall along with Brent prices.<\/p>\n

But the problem is that the Strait of Hormuz hasn\u2019t actually reopened yet \u2014 and there are serious doubts about what \u201creopening\u201d means exactly (not to mention how long it might last).<\/p>\n

Just hours after Trump announced the ceasefire, for instance, Iranian state media said Tehran had turned some tankers away and \u201cfully closed\u201d the strait again. Semi-official outlets affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reported that the strait\u2019s closure came in response to a deadly wave of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,\u201d Trump wrote Thursday on social media. \u201cThat is not the agreement we have!\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been some confusion over whether Hormuz is currently closed or open. Iran seems to have stopped laying mines and attacking vessels, and the regime has said it will allow for safe passage if ships coordinate with the country\u2019s armed forces. At the same time, Tehran is insisting that if the Strait of Hormuz is to fully reopen, Israel must stop bombarding the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon \u2014 a contentious issue that threatens the ceasefire. The regime is also demanding formal control over the strait going forward, with a reported toll of $2 million per vessel.<\/p>\n

These kinks could be ironed out by negotiators who are meeting in Pakistan over the weekend<\/a>. Governments in Europe and Asia have said they will eventually \u201ccontribute to ensuring freedom of navigation.\u201d And even though Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. might join Iran in charging a Hormuz toll as \u201ca joint venture<\/a>,\u201d by Thursday, he was adamant about them not doing so on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait,\u201d the president wrote on social media. \u201cThey better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, few ships are willing to risk the journey. In fact, Wednesday saw the lowest ship traffic through the strait since late March, according to data from Kpler, a global ship-tracking firm. Just five bulk carriers made the trip; no oil or gas tankers joined them. Before the war, more than 130 ships typically crossed the strait each day.<\/p>\n

The ceasefire is \u201ctoo unstable for anyone to commit,\u201d one maritime insurance executive told the New York Times<\/a>. Until those ships start moving and Gulf oil comes back online, there\u2019s no chance of U.S. gas prices going down.<\/p>\n

\u2018Up like a rocket and down like feather\u2019<\/p>\n

Assuming the Strait of Hormuz does fully reopen sometime soon \u2014 a big assumption given all the diplomatic challenges ahead \u2014 experts say prices at the pump still won\u2019t plunge to their prewar level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an old expression: Gas prices go up like a rocket and come down like a feather,\u201d one independent oil analyst told CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the case of Iran, five factors will continue to pad the price of gas even after the end of the war.<\/p>\n

First, oil production has largely ground to a halt across the Persian Gulf over the past six weeks \u2014 partly because the region\u2019s oil infrastructure suffered damage<\/a> and partly because countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman and Saudi Arabia (the world\u2019s largest oil exporter) ran out of storage space. An estimated 7.5 million barrels of production per day were shut down in March, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Global supply will continue to suffer while these countries play catch up \u2014 a process that could take years, experts say<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Second, exporting oil from the Gulf will get more expensive if Iran charges a toll, and that added cost \u2014 an estimated $1 per barrel, according to CNN \u2014 is likely to be passed on to consumers.<\/p>\n

Third, insurance for ships that cross the Strait of Hormuz will likely cost more as well \u2014 another expense that could make gas and other petroleum products pricier for Americans.<\/p>\n

Fourth, \u201ctraders will want some premium to compensate for [the] risk\u201d that the \u201cceasefire breaks,\u201d according to Zandi. That\u2019s why oil futures are still above prewar levels through the end of 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, retail gas station owners set their prices based on the wholesale price of gas. When oil gets more expensive, that price goes up \u2014 but gas stations tend to accept a smaller profit margin on each gallon they sell in order to stay competitive. Then, when the cost of oil starts to fall, they typically try to even things out by hanging onto higher gas prices for as long as possible.<\/p>\n

The U.S. now produces more oil than any other country on earth. But it also consumes more, and even though very little of America\u2019s petroleum is imported from the Persian Gulf, the market is global \u2014 meaning everyone is competing for the same barrel of oil. So prices rise everywhere at once.<\/p>\n

Over the past few days, they have nosedived from about $110 to about $90 a barrel on news of the ceasefire, then rocketed back to about $100 amid fears that it could fall apart. Until those numbers stabilize, U.S. gas prices will remain stubbornly high.<\/p>\n

And even if they do start to fall, it could take until next year for them to slip under $3 again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the hours before President Trump announced a temporary ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday, the average gas price…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":718470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[9967,83,81567,50,11411,1807,5503,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-718469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-gas-prices","tag-iran","tag-mark-zandi","tag-news","tag-oil-prices","tag-president-trump","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116381343826624010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}