MIAMI — Nearly six months into the war pitting the United States and Israel against Iran, American drivers are still shelling out well above what they paid before the fighting began. But according to one of the nation's largest refiners, the pain at the pump would be worse without an unexpected assist: oil from Venezuela.
Regular gasoline is running $4.07 a gallon nationally this week, still inflated ever since Iran moved to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a passage that under normal conditions handles roughly a fifth of the planet's oil shipments. Florida isn't spared either: state prices are hovering near $3.92 a gallon as of this week, a modest reprieve from the national figure but still nowhere close to the roughly $3-a-gallon prices Floridians saw before hostilities broke out.
