Oil Price Perspective

From 1913 to the present, despite multiple “global energy revolutions,” the price of gas at the pump (net of taxes) has ranged between $2 and $4 a gallon in 2006 dollars. As of May 2013, the U.S. national average was $3.0 ($$3.04 in 2006 dollars).

 

According to The Wall Street Journal (May 2013), “Four dollars appears to be a fair approximation of the price at which consumers curtail their usage, $2 a gallon is a price at which producers pare back production and postpone the hunt for new reserves.”