FOND DU LAC (NBC 26) — Filling up at the pump and looking at gas prices, I got to thinking.
If the U.S produces their own oil, why are gas prices going up?
I reached out to a University of Wisconsin Oshkosh professor as to why that is the case.
At Kwik Trip in Fond du Lac and around the country prices at the pump are up.
Currently, people like Cheryl Williams from Milwaukee are feeling that increase in their wallet.
“I just put $35 dollars in there, normally what would be $25 and is now $35, prices are just ridiculous," Williams said.
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According to the American Automobile Association in Fond du Lac the average cost of gas a month ago was around two dollars and forty cents.
That average price a week ago was three dollars and thirty six cents.
Today at the pump prices are around 3 dollars and seventy cents per gallon.
At UW Oshkosh I asked economics professor David Fuller if the U.S could sustain itself off of its own oil.
And he says there would certainly be challenges.
"So the global oil market is very large, and the U.S is a big country," Fuller said. "But it can't control the price of oil on its own. It's not big enough to have a major influence on the world price of oil.
Fuller says while the U.S could theoretically rely on its own supply.
The ramifications would be widespread.
"If we went full self sufficiency and stopped trading oil with other countries the price of oil would be higher than it is now," Fuller said.
Fuller indicated it is much cheaper and easier to extract oil in other parts of the world, which is why the U.S is not as robust in its oil production.
"We might be able to make the quantity sufficient for what we might need, but it would be a typically a much higher price," Fuller said. "And that's going to cause the price of gasoline to be higher, and the price of other goods and services to be higher."
Fuller also says that there is nothing inherently holding back U.S oil companies from producing more in the our country. It simply is a numbers game.
