friday when the markets closed. i ll update this again at 2:00 this afternoon. president trump repeatedly called for the lowering of crude oil pricing. for fact s sake, is that going to help americans with the cost of gas in barrel prices have more than doubled from lows in early 2016. americans are feeling the pinch at the pump. that s normal. paying $2.85 a gallon for unleaded gasoline, self-serve. almost 60 cents higher from a year ago. while it is bad news for consumers, it is good news for america s shale oil producers. fracking from rocks is a lot more expensive than conventional oil drilling, where you drill into the ground and oil comes up. crude oil prices have to be around $60 a barrel for shale operators to turn a profit. there s some differences in the number. rough average, about $60 a barrel. back when oil prices collapsed in 2015, america s oil industry ended up shaving 60,000 jobs from payrolls.