Escalating Oil and Gas Prices Fueling Inflation in Montana

The price of oil has been steadily rising and with that the price of gas has been fluctuating, as well.

Patrick DeHaan, analyst with Gas Buddy provides details to KGVO News.

“We continue to see oil prices escalating nationally up about a penny a gallon in the last week,” said DeHaan. “Montana is basically now on par with a week ago. There was some upward movement but now prices easing back off the statewide average in Montana down about two tenths of a penny in the last week. Oil prices, at least for now have stabilized oil at about $82 a barrel today.”

DeHaan expanded the discussion to include world leaders who have been threatening various actions in the energy markets.

“The biggest open question is ‘what will the administration do’?” he asked. “President Biden has issued some veiled threats at OPEC to increase oil production, and potentially they're calling his bluff. Now it remains to be seen if President Biden will take action to release oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve as he has hinted he would.”

DeHaan said it’s important to know how much more Americans are spending at the gas pumps than they were just a year ago going into the holiday season.

“Doing the arithmetic, Americans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars more, in fact north of a half billion dollars more on gasoline today and every single day than they were a year ago so its quite the difference as gas prices have soared,” he said.

DeHaan said the only unknown factor is the winter weather to come around the world.

“The biggest question is ‘what will mother nature do in the weeks ahead as we approach the winter and heating oil season?” he asked. “Will we see cold weather which will push demand higher? Or will it be mild? I think those are the questions that will remain unanswered at least for now but certainly could have an oversized effect on energy prices moving forward.”

DeHaan said consumer prices continue to rise, fueled by the increase in transportation costs.