Gas prices are dropping ahead of the summer travel season and experts say they'll likely stay low through this year.
The national average price for a gallon of gas on Monday was $3.13, according to GasBuddy. That's down eight cents over the past week and down nearly 50 cents from a year ago.
Typically, this time of the year is when the price of gas starts to climb. Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, says over the past 10 years, the average national gas price hit its peak on or around April 10. That won't be the case this year because of tariffs, De Haan says.
"Tariffs can constrain in a significant way the global economy as well as the U.S. economy, and that can send gasoline demand globally much lower," De Hann said.
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That drop in demand has been reflected in the falling price of crude oil.
The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was around $61 on Monday, down about 10% from a month earlier, according to OilPrice.com.
On Monday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries slashed its forecast for oil demand this year by 150,000 barrels per day, citing uncertainty about tariffs. The group initially projected demand to rise by 1.45 million barrels per day in 2025. Now it says it will only rise by 1.3 million barrels per day
The OPEC forecast change came despite the group recently deciding to increase output in May, a move that also helped drive prices down due to anticipation of a higher supply of oil.
De Haan says the combination of increased oil production and the current tariff situation will likely keep prices at the pump down.
"I think it's pretty safe to say that unless there's massive shift that consumers are going to be saving quite a bit at the pump this summer compared to last year," De Haan said.
But he warned those lower gas prices will likely be the result of tariffs driving up the prices of other goods.
"Be careful what you root for," he said. "If you want to root for low gas prices, you may need to take some — or accept some — economic pain to get those lower prices."
