Local Oil Expert Addresses War Impact On Oil, Gas Prices

AAA said it expects the national gas price to top $4 per gallon by St. Patrick's Day on Monday. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine goes on, many people wonder how high gas prices are going to go.

"It's more about the potential of supply interruptions. Russia is like the number three oil producer in the world and they export in excess of 6 million barrels a day," said Tom Seng.

Seng is the Director of the School of Energy Economics at the University of Tulsa. He said gas prices are the highest we've seen since 2014. He said for more than a year, we've had an oil shortage which is another factor in the increasing prices.

"When someone says 'hey oil is $95,' right now, that means that April crude oil to be delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma, is trading at $95. So that's the perception of the value of the oil in April based on the current market conditions and this what we call this fear factor," said Seng.

Seng said the uncertainty of the Russian-Ukraine crisis is something to watch closely but expects prices to drop slightly until we know how much of an interruption this could cause long term.

"The market again, these are human beings and this is their livelihood buying and selling energy wanting to make money. Certainly not wanting to lose money. So last week, what we basically saw here is the fear factor of $4 and it shot up $95 then we fell back down," said Seng.