When asked how the dropping gas prices has affected her, Lindsey Mulberg, a junior majoring in music percussion from Washington, said, “Definitely been able to go more places because it’s not five bucks a gallon anymore. It was like $2.65 at Costco.”With gas prices being the lowest they’ve been since 2009, reports AAA, people with cars have been able to afford gas to see more of the island. Students without cars, like twins Nicole and Kelly Nahoolewa from Texas, both seniors with majors in art, find it affects them less, although they have been able to notice the lower prices. “We noticed around Christmas time,” Kelly said. Les Harper, the BYU-Hawaii Sustainability coordinator from Canada, stated the lowered oil prices began when Saudi Arabia started to flood the market with oil in response to America’s budding independence and self-sufficiency due to the new technology of fracking. Fracking is what happens when the oil companies drill down into the ground, breaking up the shale so the oil can seep through. Harper explained that oil is extracted from the ground, but it costs extra money to attain it in this manner. “When oil’s at $100 a barrel, it costs maybe $80 a barrel to get it out of the ground, so there’s still money to be made,” Harper shared. When a well costs so much to get oil out of the ground, the crude oil price starts to go down, and certain wells are closed until only the cheapest ones are still going. Harper said, “As a consumer, it’s a wonderful thing, because air flights should be cheaper, your vehicles should be cheaper, anything made from oil should be cheaper, and eventually that will happen.”As Saudi Arabia was losing a valuable buyer in the United States, it decided to flood the market and drop the price. Even though Saudi Arabia is losing money, it knows it will come back, according to Harper. Despite the lower gas prices, producers in the United States are fighting even harder to sell their own crude oil overseas, according to Associated Press. Despite low prices, oil producers are confident that in the long run, there will be big profits from new markets. AP explained there is still enough U.S. oil to keep and export overseas.Little is known about how long gas prices will stay down, yet while they are down, people will take advantage of it. Harper added, “More people should be coming to Hawaii now.”Uploaded Feb. 19, 2015
Writer: Rachel Reed
