Drivers around the world are paying an average of $5.89 per gallon for gasoline this week, according to Global Petrol Prices, a jump of roughly a dollar since late February, before war erupted in Iran and sent shock waves through global energy markets. As of February 23, a few days before the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on the Islamic Republic, the average gas price worldwide was $4.92 per gallon. The global increase is similar to the one seen across the United States since late February, when gas prices averaged about $2.98 per gallon shortly before the conflict began.
As of Thursday, the national average had reached $4.28 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. That makes for an increase of $1.30 per gallon of gas in the U.S. since February 28. For American drivers hoping for lower gas prices after the massive surges that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and the subsequent disruptions to the global oil supply, it has brought a significant additional financial burden.
Global Petrol Prices, which has released data up to September 7, recorded a national average gas price in the United States of $4.42, slightly higher than AAA's average that day of $4.15 per gallon. According to Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, American consumers are paying $377 million more per day due to higher gas prices. That adds up to a "$4.63 billion additional surcharge every week," he wrote on X.
De Haan also told Newsweek that even the limited drop in gas prices usually seen in fall "is in question" amid the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. Despite this clear setback, Americans have been somewhat shielded from the sharpest price increases, which have hit other parts of the world. Based on Thursday's AAA data, gas prices in the United States are roughly $1.61 below the global average.
Fuel prices have climbed worldwide since the start of the war as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas supply used to flow, has caused oil prices to skyrocket. The five cheapest places to buy gas are all major oil producers or heavily subsidized fuel markets. At the bottom of the ranking, drivers in Libya paid just $0.09 per gallon, followed by Iran ($0.11), Venezuela ($0.132), Angola ($1.238) and Kuwait ($1.287), according to data from Global Petrol Prices.
These prices are a fraction of the global average and reflect a combination of government subsidies, domestic oil production and state intervention in fuel markets. At the other end of the spectrum, the world's highest gas prices on Monday were recorded in Hong Kong, where motorists paid $15.892 per gallon, more than 170 times the price in Libya. Next came Malawi ($12.245), Norway ($11.765), Denmark ($11.100) and the Netherlands ($10.371).
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