If there is so much oil and gas around, why does it cost $3.61/gallon of gasoline?????
Because there is so much demand for it.
We still import more oil than we produce ourselves.
We import more from OPEC than we produce in Texas, North Dakota, Alaska and California taken together.
Oil is a also a globally priced commodity. Relative to its cost, it is cheap to transport it around the world.
Printing money devalues the dollar.
Because drilling sideways and fracing costs a whole lot of money. It costs even more when you have inexperienced people doing it. The waste is terrible.
In real dollars gasoline isn’t much higher than it was a long time ago but it is higher.
As much as you pay for stuff the industry pays the same and usually more just because it is the oil industry.
BTW, those average wages that are double the $47K average for Texas... by the hour they work out pretty close to the same. The oilfield is very little time off until the job is done and the boom is over. This one has just lasted a long time. Longer than most.
Shale production in the Baken declines at about 37% per year only drilling like mad men keeps it rising by keeping the new wells coming on line. Unless more rigs are added the rate of increase will eventually fall then stop and then the decline will begin. Until then it is good news.