Gas In Oklahoma At A 7 Year High, Expected To Climb

Gas prices are on the rise again in Oklahoma and at this point, there's no reason we shouldn't expect to be paying even more at the pump headed into the holiday season.

On average, while fuel prices vary depending on how far or close a town is to a petroleum rack and refinery, you can expect to pay about $2.926 per gallon of gasoline in the Sooner State according to Triple-A, which is about 35¢ cheaper than the national average.

Unbelievably, Walters in Cotton County just South of Lawton is the cheapest place in the state to buy gas at $2.779 per gallon at the time this was published. Lawton was the second cheapest at $2.782 per gallon. We're somehow cheaper than the Oklahoma City metro area, which normally has the cheapest petrol in the state.

Just for reference, a year ago our average price was $1.761 per gallon locally in Lawton.

If you're curious why gas prices are skyrocketing at the moment, the answer is the demand for energy worldwide is at crisis levels according to just about every news outlet playing copy/paste with the same story. The economy is opening back up across the globe and with that comes a demand for oil. As everybody buys it up, the price continues to rise.

In fact, a barrel of oil has risen to over $80 a barrel for the first time in seven years. It's quite a jump considering that the same barrel of oil was worth minus-$40 in April of 2020. It was literally worth forty dollars less than zero dollars when the pandemic really hit America.

While it will certainly give the average driver a little sticker shock, it shows no sign of letting up yet. China's coal demand has hit a new record high. Wall Street is trading oil futures even higher, expecting barrels to hit $90 before the new year, and the thirteen state members of OPEC (Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries) are comfortable with high-priced oil for now. As soon as America starts matching production again, they'll likely flood the market to kill off oilfield jobs like they've done multiple times in the past.