Gas prices in the United States have been steadily rising again after a period of steady decline. In the spring and summer, we saw a sharp rise in gas prices in Texas, up to over $4 a gallon. On the west coast, it was over $6. Then we saw a gradual decline in prices. 

We got lower prices because Biden dipped into our strategic oil reserves. However, those reserves are now at their lowest levels since 1984. 

Over the past year, to add more oil supply into the market, Biden planned to release 180 million barrels of oil from our strategic oil reserves over a six month period.  The last 15 million will be released in December. Today the reserve totals sit at 400,000 million barrels. 

Yet, placing more oil in our strategic reserves, which is for emergencies or times of war, is not something that we can just easily acquire more of. 

According to OilPrice.com, “at some point, the U.S. will not have the luxury of additional SPR releases to keep oil prices in check and to provide relief to domestic consumers. Prolonging such a strategy may backfire. Therefore, the U.S. should adopt a strategy of increasing domestic oil production to reduce oil import dependency and have more flexible strategic options.”

Early in October, OPEC decided to cut production by 2 million barrels of oil per day starting in November. That has been a significant development in the rise in gas prices. In a statement by OPEC, “In light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks, and the need to enhance the long-term guidance for the oil market, and in line with the successful approach of being proactive, and pre-emptive, which has been consistently adopted by OPEC and non-OPEC Participating Countries in the Declaration of Cooperation, the Participating Countries decided to…adjust downward the overall production by 2 mb/d from the August 2022 required production levels, starting November 2022 for OPEC and non-OPEC Participating Countries,” said OPEC in a statement.

Despite OPEC’s further reasoning for restricting their output, 2 million barrels a day is a lot of oil to not have on the market. While that will not start until November, it’s already affecting the price. 

Furthermore, 18% of our oil refineries are offline, which also affects the prices. “The recent increases [in prices] have been caused by the unusually high number of US refineries that are shut down for maintenance work,” said the global head of OPIS, which tracks gas prices for AAA, to CNN.

Thus, there is a variety of recent factors at play towards the price of gas increasing recently. It is debatable where the prices will go; if they reach the levels we have seen earlier this year. 

The reality today is that oil is what the world runs on, not only in cars but in plastics, clothing, and materials that we consume and use every day. One factor in another part of the world can change how much we are going to spend on oil, and how much the prices at the pump can go up. As our short-term solutions to the lowering of oil supply run out, America is going to need to fixate on a long-term solution, one that is sustainable, and fixed in practicality and reality.