In September, Tulsans were paying an average of about $3.76 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline, and by Wednesday, that average had fallen to about $2.59, according to consumer website GasBuddy.
[Hear the KRMG In-Depth report on oil and gas prices HERE]
That’s despite not one, but two regional conflicts - the war in Gaza, and the ongoing war in Ukraine - which in the past, would likely have led to major, long-lasting spikes in energy prices.
Eric Olson is Director of the Center for Energy Studies at the University of Tulsa.
He told KRMG Wednesday that what many have dubbed the “shale revolution” of the last decade or so, combined with investors who have grown increasingly wary of wild price fluctuations, have combined to stabilize prices.
The shale revolution refers to the practice of fracking, which makes it economically feasible to shatter rock formations and extract light, sweet crude from them.
Of course, there are other factors at play as well.
“The number of, you know, EVs and stuff like that that gets on the road puts a little bit of a damper on demand,” he said. “I think the dramatic increase in supply because of the shale revolution - I think really what you’ve got is, you kind of have this equilibrium and everybody’s pretty certain about where the equilibrium price of oil is gonna be. And I thinks it’s probably going to stay somewhere between sixty-five and eighty-five dollars for probably the next five to seven years.”
Short term, he’s also optimistic about prices remaining fairly stable, despite a possible production cut by OPEC later this month.
“If they don’t do a production cut, I think you’ll probably continue to see gas prices keep falling,” he said. “If they do a production cut, you’ll probably see them kind of stabilize about where we’re at right now.”