Low oil prices do not help the oil and gas industry. We need oil around $70/bbl.
Sorry but $70 a bbl is highway robbery and has nothing to with cost to produce. We know where more oil is today than at any point in human history. The “peak oil” nonsense they used by speculators to drive up high oil prices not that long ago was complete crap and manipulation.
Its a $35-45 a bbl commodity, everything over that is manipulation.
The Saudis could flood the market again and drive oil to thirty bucks, and in two months U.S. exploration and production would dry up.
Prices at the pump would likely be lower, but not for long.
Once our producers are shut down, the Saudis and others would open the spigots again, as they have been doing for decades.
Keeping the price at $60 or so isn't the easiest on consumers, but it beats a dead domestic oil industry.
The stuff is cheap as it is, compared to other commodities. There are charts all over the web showing present prices to be only slightly above 1980 levels, using constant dollar values.
Of course there are charts on the web to show just about anything. But gasoline, with occasional interruptions, has been remarkably stable for over a century.
Credit the U.S. oil industry for that.