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Gasoline Prices Down About Five Cents Per Gallon as Crude Prices Drop

 In this April 26, 2017, photo, gas is pumped at a filling station in Nashville, Tenn. By air or car, summer 2017 travel numbers are expected to rise over the previous year thanks to deals on airfares and stable gasoline prices.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, file
In this April 26, 2017, photo, gas is pumped at a filling station in Nashville, Tenn. By air or car, summer 2017 travel numbers are expected to rise over the previous year thanks to deals on airfares and stable gasoline prices.

If you filled the tank this week, you might have noticed gasoline prices are down about a nickel-a-gallon in the last week. It’s the biggest price change in a while. GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick DeHahn says it’s the result of “a fairly organized” drop in the price of crude oil.

“Oil prices now about $46 dollars per barrel or so,” he says. “Back in mid-May, just four weeks ago, oil prices were hovering near $50 a barrel. I would say much of the decline in oil prices is reflected at the pump. The concern now is with oil prices will they continue to drop or will they bounce back, as they have time-and-time again.”

DeHahn says oil has re-bounded several times from the mid-$40 range. He says crude prices this week have begun rising again, but it’s too early to say if they’ll rise enough to send pump prices higher again.

“The risk is that oil prices could bounce back,” he says. “And that could lead to either slowing down in terms of their descent, or we could, eventually by, perhaps next week, start to see prices start to move back up.”

DeHahn says crude has already ticked up about 18-cents a barrel this week. Pump prices in New Hampshire fell last week by three-point-six-cents a gallon, on average.