Consumers Saved $248 Billion in 2013 Thanks to Fracking

Much has been said about the many jobs and economic boost created by new drilling technologies, but the benefits extend far beyond areas rich in oil and gas. According to a new study from ICF International, American consumers saved somewhere between $63 and $248 billion thanks to horizontal drilling and fracking technologies.

The Institute for Energy Research says these new numbers call into question the president’s claim that the country can’t “drill our way to lower gas prices.”

According to the study, without fracking and horizontal drilling, gasoline would have cost between 29 cents and 94 cents more per gallon. Almost half (48 percent) of oil and gas production in 2013 came from shale formations that required fracking and horizontal drilling. The impact on these technologies becomes evident when you look at oil and gas production just five years earlier, in 2008 — then, just 11 percent of American oil and gas production came from shale. That’s a 537 percent increase.

The study is more proof of fracking’s positive impact on consumers. Last year, a report from HIS Global Insight demonstrated that the typical American household saved $1,200 in 2012, just from using techniques like fracking and horizontal drilling.

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