U.S. gasoline prices, which are now at their highest in seven years, could stay at these elevated levels for "a couple of years," Ryan Sitton, a former member of the Texas Railroad Commission, the oil regulator in America's top oil-producing state, told Sputnik.
"If we maintain the current political environment which is keeping people, investors especially and institutions, retirement funds and those sort of things, if those people continue to be hesitant to spend money or to loan money or to invest money in oil, then we're going to see high prices for a long time, maybe for a couple of years," Sitton told Sputnik.
According to the former commissioner at the Texas oil regulator, the Biden Administration's policies and language could soften as crude oil prices are rallying, and gasoline prices would drop later next year.
"I think between their language softening and prices coming up, I think what is going to happen is investors are probably going to get a little more confident," Sitton told Sputnik.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden was said to have discussed the latest trends in retail fuel prices with representatives of the U.S. oil industry.
High prices at the pump are notorious as a voting preference factor, and the Democrats are already preparing for next year's midterm, so they need to act fast to lower prices.
The Biden administration has called on OPEC+ to bring more oil to the market, but the cartel has brushed off the calls and is sticking to its disciplined approach to supply increase to keep prices higher.
Now, according to a report in Politico, President Biden has finally decided to reach out to an industry against which much of his political agenda is directed.
Meanwhile, the average price at the pump in the U.S. had increased every day for 27 days to October 25, adding approximately 20 cents to the cost of a gallon of gas, AAA said on Monday. The recent rise in the pump price was the result of higher demand, a decline in stocks, and high crude prices, AAA noted.
"We haven't seen prices this high since September of 2014," AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross said.
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By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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