the daily OPEC price has remained essentially level all through March. (Those higher bills to fill your tank stem from that February rise; it takes time for oil to move from newly sold crude to gasoline at your local pump.) Those two periods of rising prices took the price of crude up 15 percent since New Year’s Day. The chart below is not our usual one showing monthly average prices, but a chart of annual averages going back to 1999. The price of crude would have to be cut in half for Iran to see it returned to the level of 2007 and 2009 when the price was around $60 a barrel and, lest we forget, the government of Iran was very flush indeed.