MIDLAND, Texas — The pandemic was hard on a lot of industries, and we saw it right here... with everything being at a standstill oil prices dropped dramatically., at one point even going into the negatives, but right now oil prices are at a much different place.
Oil prices are up, "For one isn't it wonderful to see oil prices over $80 again?" said Scott Dufford, Business Development and Investor Relations for ARES Energy.
It has to do with the shift in supply and demand and the industry is in a much different place than it was mid-pandemic "Next thing you know we get this double whammy of Covid everything is shut down everyone is staying at home spending any money and then two, all of a sudden we go to having too much supply and we had negative oil prices as a result of that," said Dufford
Now that supply and demand is going in the other direction, "One, we've already got a demand issue because we've come out of the pandemic, were seeing growth everywhere throughout the world all the economies are finally coming back."
He continued, "The supply side is since the pandemic, almost every oil and gas company, they've been under-investing because they didn't know if we'd need this much oil again," said Dufford.
With things starting to become more normal, people need more gas which has made oil prices go up.
"Therefore, the prices are going up. There are some folks saying it could go to 100, I've seen speculators actually putting their money on $200 oil, I hope it doesn't get that high, I think the sweet spot for at least the Permian basin, for all of us to make money is somewhere in that 75 to 80 range."
If prices go too high it can have negative impacts
"Just as an oil industry as a whole, we don't want people to have to make choices between paying the rent or putting a gallon of gas in their car to get to work," said Dufford.
Gas and oil companies in the area are putting in the work to provide more gas and oil for the country.
"The Permian basin we've scrapped our way back to the point, where we're just about where we were pre-pandemic levels, as far as our oil and gas production in the Permian so we're doing our part out here, to increase that supply that's needed," said Dufford