High demand and higher oil prices are keeping Texas gas at the highest it's been in seven years.
It's a price we haven't seen in quite a while: just under 77 dollars a barrel. The spike comes as OPEC and its allies, like Russia, haven't been able to reach a deal on their production for August until the end of the year.
“These are the aftereffects of COVID. These are economic events we haven’t witnessed before. There’s going to be some lag time I think before supply catches up a little bit. Probably sometime next year before we are normalized,” Petroleum economist Karr Ingham said.
He also notes the rise in the rig count state and nationwide.
“We’re adding to the rig count. It’s been slow going up to this point, but there’s little doubt about the fact that the rig count in Texas is going to go up. In fact, it bounced up a little bit. It’s going to continue to do so because operators are going to respond to higher prices,” Ingham explained.
He anticipates higher gas prices through Labor Day, and it could stay high through the end of 2021.