The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell 2.5 cents in the past week to $2.26. The median price remained flat for the week at $2.199, and the average difference between the highest 5% of prices and the lowest 5% prices widened by nearly four cents per gallon to $1.171. One year ago, a gallon of regular gas averaged $2.773 in the United States, more than 50 cents a gallon higher than this year.

The national average price fell for the three weeks prior to the July 4th holiday, and gasoline priced at less than $2 a gallon is available in 32 states, according to analysts at GasBuddy.

For the third week in a row, gas prices have continued to drop sharply in the Midwest as more gasoline is being produced at the region’s refineries after outages earlier this year. The average price for a gallon of gas fell 12.5 cents in Ohio, week over week, and declined 12.1 cents in Indiana and 10.5 cents in Michigan.

GasBuddy senior petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan said:

Yesterday’s gas prices ended just as GasBuddy predicted a week ago: $2.27 per gallon nationally. While prices have come down, we now head to the time of year when hurricane season enters the picture. In the last couple of years we have seen minimal to no disruption as hurricane season largely went by with no major storms that hit land. Should we see a major hurricane enter the Gulf, gas prices may react. For the week ahead, expect much of the country to see prices continue to trickle lower while the Great Lakes states may see their first price increase in weeks as stations have undercut each other to the point where they begin losing money

The five states with the lowest average current prices are South Carolina ($1.951), Oklahoma ($2.012), Mississippi ($2.014), Arkansas ($2.043) and Alabama ($2.045). There are just seven states where gas prices exceed $2.50, led by California ($2.909), Hawaii ($2.832), Washington ($2.665), Alaska ($2.601) and Nevada ($2.570). Washington, D.C., and Oregon are the other two.

As Tuesday’s noon hour wound down, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for August delivery traded down about 5% for the day at $46.53, largely as a result of a high inventory of gasoline.

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