NEW YORK -- Consumers have been getting a break at the gas pump, with prices dropping further below $3 a gallon. Auto club AAA said gasoline has fallen more than 13 cents a gallon since Friday, hitting a national average of $2.89 Tuesday.
Pump prices have fallen more than 29 percent from their July record high of $4.114 a gallon and are just 10 cents higher than a year ago. That gap could be eliminated this week if gasoline keeps falling at the current rate.
The pullback at the pump comes amid a dramatic turnaround in crude oil prices. The near-certainty of an OPEC production cut pushed oil prices marginally higher Monday in New York.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose $2.40 to settle at $74.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil prices rose above $75 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as investors expected OPEC to try to halt a three-month slide in prices by cutting production quotas at least 1 million barrels a day.
Iran's oil minister said the Islamic republic, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel of gas exporting countries.
Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari says that the top three countries with natural gas reserves will "seriously pursue the formation of an organization of gas exporting countries."
Nozari spoke on state TV after a joint meeting with his Qatari counterpart Abdulla Bin Hamad al-Attiya and the head of Russia's Gazprom Alexei Miller.
The idea of formation of the gas cartel was first raised by Iran when then-president of Russia Vladimir Putin visited Tehran in 2007.
