--- title: Why Gas Prices Are Finally About to Come Down description: The tumbling cost of crude oil, due to the Omicron variant, signals that some relief from sky-high gas prices is on the way. authors: - name: Adam Hardy role: Lead Data Reporter url: https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/ bio: Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. Adam’s work has also appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Nasdaq, The Penny Hoarder, Yahoo! Finance and more than a dozen local and regional newspapers. education: University of South Florida, BA, Magazine Journalism at_money_since: 2021 articles: 501 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - The Penny Hoarder - Forbes Advisor - Creative Loafing - The New York Times - The Washington Post - Bloomberg - Harvard Law School - The Federal Register - National Consumer Law Center - CBS News - Becker's Hospital Review - Business Insider - Mother Jones - The Week - Fortune - The Philadelphia Inquirer - National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NAFSAA) - Education Advisory Board (EAB) - The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) - This Morning with Gordon Deal - Empower - Reddit social: - https://www.x.com/hardyjournalism - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hardyjournalism/ published: '2021-12-01T18:15:44.000Z' modified: '2024-01-10T17:01:36.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - driving - Gas prices - News word_count: 464 canonical: https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Woman puts fuel in her car's gas tank](https://img.money.com/2021/12/News-Why-gas-prices-are-about-to-plunge.jpg) At long last, gas prices are primed to plunge — and beyond the typical dip at this time of year. According to [AAA](https://gasprices.aaa.com/), the average gas price today is about $3.38 per gallon of regular, which is considerably high but down 2 cents from last month. At this time last year, gas prices were about $1.25 cheaper. Analysis from GasBuddy, which pulls pricing data from more than 150,000 gas stations nationwide, shows that gas prices have fallen for the third consecutive week, indicating that prices are at least trending in the right direction for drivers. A steeper drop could also be on the horizon as prices for crude oil plummeted as much as $10 a barrel Friday following news of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus. “Gas price declines are slowly picking up momentum. With oil’s recent fall and the jury out on a new Covid variant, Omicron, we could be in store for lower prices based on many countries turning back to travel restrictions, limiting oil demand and potentially accelerating the drop in gas prices,” Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, said in a [statement](https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/gas-prices-fall-over-thanksgiving-as-turbulence-rises-on-omicron). This means drivers could finally see some relief from sky-high gas prices, which are historically supposed to fall in the cooler months as gas stations switch to a cheaper version of fuel around wintertime. Instead, gas prices in October hit [a seven-year high](https://money.com/why-are-gas-prices-high-2021/) and even eked slightly higher throughout November. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says that the retail price of gas is comprised of four main factors: crude oil costs, oil refining costs, distribution and marketing costs, and taxes. Of the price you pay at the pump, the EIA says as much as 56% goes toward the wholesale cost of crude oil. In other words, when crude oil prices drop, so do gas prices for everyday drivers — albeit with some lag time. To combat the surging gas prices, President Biden ordered a release of 50 million barrels of crude oil from U.S. stockpiles ahead of Thanksgiving, but experts are attributing the tumbling oil prices largely to the Omicron variant — and not the president’s recent actions. As the Associated Press [noted](https://apnews.com/article/biden-oil-strategic-reserve-gas-prices-a7e0802b299cd627c7ffdeeb0e50bd2c), oil prices actually jumped 2% immediately following Biden’s announcement. In contrast, oil prices plummeted more than 10% after the news of Omicron broke. It’s unclear how far retail gas prices will fall as a result of tumbling crude oil prices. But if the oil market sustains even part of the losses from last week, that can translate into cheaper prices at the pump. [Best Money Moves for December 2021](https://money.com/best-money-moves-december-2021/) [How Omicron Could Impact Your Investments](https://money.com/omicron-variant-investments/) [Sticker Shock! A New Car Costs $5,000 More Than a Year Ago, on Average](https://money.com/new-car-price-record-high-2021/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Gas Prices", "item": "https://money.com/gas-prices/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why Gas Prices Are Finally About to Come Down" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/", "name": "Why Gas Prices Are Finally About to Come Down", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2021-12-01T18:15:44.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/gas-prices-decrease-oil-omicron/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-01-10T17:01:36.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Why Gas Prices Are Finally About to Come Down", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2021/12/News-Why-gas-prices-are-about-to-plunge.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Why-gas-prices-are-about-to-plunge" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Adam Hardy", "url": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/adam-hardy/#author", "description": "Adam Hardy is a lead data journalist at Money, where he frequently reports on financial barriers that affect low-income Americans. 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