At that time minimum wage was $1.25, I recall @old_mopar_guy. So gasoline and cigarettes would need to be <$1.50 to be cheaper than 1963.
Okay, showing my ignorance here but why cannot well heads be idled so that natural gas isn’t wasted?
I grew up in Oklahoma where I often saw oil well heads idled at times. And I saw gas well heads idled. What I mean by idled is that the big rocker arms weren’t moving. I’m not sure I’m using correct terms. (Now I feel ignorant. A Tulsa "oil capitol of the world… once upon a time… Okie should know these things.)
So, basically, why not cease pumping until it becomes profitable again?
When oil is in a closed cavern with natural gas under pressure above it the pressure will push the oil out of a newly drilled well causing a gusher until the line is closed. If reopened to extract the oil as the oil is pushed or pulled out it depresses the liquid level downward to the pipe inlet allowing the gas to exit out with the crude and if it isn’t captured it escapes. For the sake of safety it is flared off. Natural gas isn’t always trapped above oil or so little is trapped that it isn’t worth worrying about.
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@Rod_Knox Thank you for the explanation. 
Noooo….not really how it works. All oil has natural gas dissolved in it. Produce the oil, you have to get the gas. No “gushers” allowed for decades. The gas being produced in the Permian is gas that’s dissolved in the oil, not in a separate gas zone. Later, as the pressure is reduces, gas also comes out of solution in the reservoir, so both gas and oil are flowing through the rock to the wellbore. But nothing about a gas level coming down to the wellbore in that area.
As for gas prices, they are at very low levels, once adjusted for inflation:
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I still don’t understand why pumping/extraction cannot be put on hold at any given well bore and later started back up?
Also, am I misunderstanding and that what is occuring is that oil is still being extracted from a field but the gas is flamed off due to more supply of than demand for the gas?
For the time being I’ll stay with fluid wells and state that in simple terms my explanation is accurate as explained by a very experienced water well driller using detailed technical drawings of the situation. No doubt these days “gushers” are avoided and wells are carefully controlled for the most part. But the physics of gas trapped above a liquid and the physics of pumping a liquid from a rocky underground pool and dealing with the trapped gas at pressure and without pressure is accurate. For an introduction to the specifics of current well control this might be a good start
but I assumed that the OP was just curious of the mechanics of the situation.
And as for natural gas prices, undoubtedly the market seems to have made it worthless at the well head. There are LNG tankers floating around the globe looking for a place to unload but there are no buyers with most buyers finding all they need at cheap prices from pipeline sources. The market is overloaded with natural gas due to the amount being drawn off oil wells that are near pipelines which carry it to plants where it can be compressed into liquid for easier shipping and storage but the supply is now beyond capacity so it is being flared off at the well
I’m a basic kind of fella @texases. And I understand the basics of many things that interest me and often go deeper into the operation of some things and this oil market situation and oil field situation interested me when the controversy over pipelines first became a hot news story. And of course the politics of pipelines and ethanol fuel got me very interested in the politics of why I am forced to deal with adulterated gasoline.
And the glut of LNG is not a new phenomena
it’s just getting to be a much bigger and more costly phenomena
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I’m sorry we hijacked this thread on Ole CSA. Maybe someone should start a new one. I don’t know about the ability to start and stop wells, but the folks in North Dakota have been well aware of the boom and bust trends and were well aware that the bust was coming. Boom comes after bust though. Part of the issue is the whole infrastructure in support of the wells like truck drivers, equipment dealers and repair folks, roads, housing, shopping, and even entertainment. These things can be pretty inelastic during the ups and downs. It’s just not easy to tool up and then suspend operations over night.
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Thank you for the links. I’ll use them to further my education.
Pumping can be shut in, which typically happens when the cash flow from the well doesn’t exceed the operating costs. This happens in older wells in OK that are expensive to produce. The Permian wells cost much more to drill, but produce a lot more, so the still can make money at lower prices.
And yes, some of the gas is flared while the oil is produced because there’s not enough demand for the gas. They’re building more pipelines to address this problem.
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Out southwest… gas is 2.85 gal. There are no independent stations…so you just get ripped by the large brand names
prices go up like a rocket here…and come down like a feather …if they do come down. No regulation of these stations
I’m guessing then, that perhaps even $2.85/gallon is a “good price” when compared with what you were paying not too long ago? What was it typically running back a few months?
CSA
I am talking about the early 1940s. The pop was 3 cents plus a 2 cent deposit. If you only had 3 cents, you could drink it in the store. A wooden case with 24 bottles got you 75 cents back, enough for 3 cap guns.
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The cheapest gas with credit card in my neighborhood is $2.29/gal. The Costco price is $1.89 and the cost half way home from work is $2.13.
There are many major brand gas stations that are owned by independent operators (like me, once) and not oil company owned. And many independent branded stations are actually supply outlets for large corporations.
I think what most people don’t realize is that the game people play with trying to find the cheapest gas is just that, a game. A difference of .05/gallon is of absolutely no consequence to the typical driver or family. But that .05/gallon to an independent operator is the difference between making the mortgage and buying groceries or not.
??? Regulating gas prices? Of course not, gasoline is an open market commodity and you are free to buy as much or as little as you like and the seller is free to charge as much or as little as he likes.
Well, OK, not really always. In Minnesota, by law, the station operator must sell for at least .08/gallon over cost.
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At my local Costco, their Top Tier gas is selling today for $2.07/regular, $2.37/premium.
That is low. I paid well over $4 a couple months ago in LA while on a business trip.
$2.09 at local BP, skipped costco, lines out the ying yang, maybe I spent $1.20 extra for 12 gallons $1.20 is not going to drive me nuts.