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Irina Slay's recent article for suggests that "uncertainty" might keep drillers from starting new wells or resuming abandoned wells.  

Consider the situation right now: Barely four weeks into the U. S./Israeli invasion of Iran, oil prices were trading nearly $40 per barrel higher. Yet, according to the Baker Hughes rig count, 552 drilling rigs are actively searching the soils for oil. That number is still better than the 538 at the end of August 2025, but it still marks a 40-count drop from the end of March 2025.

Why, then, might drillers be more hesitant to drill even as oil prices continue to rise?

Look at what happened 40 years ago — or, perhaps, even more than 40 years ago. Let's call it 55 years ago.  

At the start of the 1970s, southeastern New Mexico was responsible for 117 million barrels of oil, or about 91% to 95% of the state's oil production. Such a high oil output could be a calculated risk, as oil prices had largely stayed stagnant — roughly two to three dollars per barrel — since the end of World War II. That was still less than the annual oil output in Texas; oil production there amounted to 1 billion barrels or more a year for 11 consecutive years (1968-78).  

But a funny thing happened.  

President Richard Nixon took the American dollar off the gold standard in the summer of 1971.  More than two years later, American support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War (which I briefly mentioned in a previous column) led to economic backlash from the Arab nations. OPEC decided not to send American refiners any more oil. Thus began a quadrupling of prices — and, in time, the long gasoline lines.  

Even as oil prices rose, New Mexico oil production declined precipitously. By 1979, oil wells from the southeastern quadrant of the state produced 70 million barrels of oil — a 40% decline from the 117 million barrels produced there in 1970.  

There were other factors tempering New Mexico oil output. In the 1970s, New Mexico producers competed with Texas producers for refinery space. In the 1980s, New Mexico producers competed with Texas producers, Alaska producers and British oil producers for refinery space.

Even so, oil output from southeastern New Mexico increased once again in 1984 — but only briefly. Even with the economic boom of the 1980s, and even with President Ronald Reagan’s push for business deregulation, Americans were using less fuel — including less gasoline — during the 1980s. Oil consumption stood at just under 16 million barrels per day in 1985, roughly 3 million barrels less than oil consumption in 1981. Americans were still leery of enduring another oil-price shock. By the spring of 1981, the national daily average price for a gallon of gasoline increased from $3.27 to $5.12 (in 2026 dollars).

The hopes of another boom in southeastern New Mexico came crashing down 40 years ago this spring. When Americans rang in 1986, the price of oil ranged from $23 to $25 per barrel (in 1986 figures). By April, the price had fallen to $10 to $11 per barrel; by August, the price had bottomed out at $9.77 per barrel. Even though world leaders such as King Fahd of Saudi Arabia promised another oil-price spike in April 1989, that spike did not come until August 1990 — and, only then, until February 1991.

The lesson for those who wonder why more drilling isn’t taking place is this:

In the oil business, good times never last.

Bad times never do, either.

Matthew Day is an independent scholar/historian from Lubbock, Texas.  He is the author of 30 books, including “Lubbock, Levelland, Baghdad, Washington;" “The Oil Empire That Wasn't Book I”, and “The Oil Empire That Wasn't Book II.”  Another book, “Fueling Victory at Home,” won the 2020 Best Indie Book Award — Nonfiction — U.S. History category.  He also writes a column for the Seminole (TX) Sentinel.  His website is .