One, Two Punch Pushing Oil Prices Lower

Oil prices, much like the rest of the world economy has been struggling as of recent. Allison Mac with GasBuddy.com said the coronavirus continues to greatly slow the China and now world economy, leading to a glut of oil. On top of that, over the weekend, Saudi Arabia and Russia could not see eye to eye on production, so the two countries started a price war. Those two factors pushed oil prices lower to start the week, with prices as low as the $30-per barrel range.

Mac said while coronavirus has been in place for a few weeks, the price war took investors by surprise.

“We thought, we’ll we’re going to figure out what we’re going to do to hold back production. Because [these countries are thinking] we’ve got to hold back production or oil prices are going to continue to drop. So, right now it’s a war of egos, and so that’s hard to control, and it’s hard to predict and so when something like that happens, it’s very un-easy and we just don’t know where we’re going to go from here.”

Mac added at this point there is no indication how long this spat between Russia and Saudi Arabia could last. She noted Midwest states are already starting to see relief at their neighborhood stations; she said that relief will not trickle out to the west for another week or so.

Here are some of the lowest diesel prices we could find across the Inland Northwest: