MIDLAND, Texas — The government is looking for ways to lower the price of gasoline.
Prices have jumped across the nation as oil has reached a 7-year high.
Only eight states, including Texas, are paying on average less than $3 per gallon at the pump right now.
To help the issue, on Wednesday, 11 Democratic senators asked President Biden to consider "all tools available at your disposal." Including an oil export ban and a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
So why is this increase in costs happening?
“Demand grew quick, once we’ve gotten out of COVID, demand's grown but production hasn’t returned," Kyle McGraw, the Permian Basin Petroleum Association's outgoing chairman, said. "The Permian is back to making what we made prior to COVID, but the U.S. is not. The U.S. used to make 13 million barrels a day, but right now we’re at about 11. Worldwide production is not where it was.”
To alleviate the price hike, some senators want President Biden to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The oil is stored along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.
But that has only been done three times in history.
“To me, that would be an extreme effort to tap into it," McGraw said. "It’s not going to be huge. It won’t affect oil prices that much because you’re only getting 1, 2, 3 days supply out of it.”
What about an oil export ban?
McGraw does not see that working either.
“We need to, overall, encourage our national production to grow more," McGraw said. "We need to encourage that development. We need worldwide production to grow to alleviate the price at the pump."
A process that will not happen overnight.
“There’s not going to be a quick fix," McGraw said. "This is like driving a big battleship, every move you make it’s going to a little while before it happens and a little while before it gets back to where it was."
For now, folks here in the Basin need to budget well for future price hikes, as we wait for this "battleship" to set sail in the right direction.