Falling prices for oil, natural gas hurting producers even as consumers benefit

Falling gasoline prices have always been good for the economy, allowing consumers to spend money elsewhere instead of on refueling their vehicles.

But this time there are losers as oil prices fall – businesses and workers involved in the domestic energy boom that has led to unprecedented oil and gas production in the middle United States.

"If the wheels come off, the energy-producing economies are going to suffer," Ken Medlock, a senior director at Rice University's Center for Energy Studies, told the Wall Street Journal.

Prices for gasoline are below $3 a gallon and as low as $2.67 at some stations in Columbus.

That's good for drivers, but bad for states like Texas and especially North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country but an economy that's more dependent on oil production than Texas.

Falling oil prices could be bad for oil-rich states because getting oil from shale is expensive. If the price for oil continues falling, the U.S. is likely to pull back. It's cheaper to get oil elsewhere.

If oil prices remain near $80 a barrel, where they are now, then production is profitable for 96 percent of U.S. wells, the Wall Street Journal reported. But "unless the prices reverse, we're going to see a substantial impact on what has been the hottest growth sector in the last four years," James Williams, an energy economist in Arkansas, told the newspaper.

So, what does this mean for Ohio and its natural-gas dominant Utica shale play?

"It's a different market," Rayola Dewar, senior economic adviser for the American Petroleum Institute, told me.

Ohio producers do drill some condensate, a high-gravity oil. But much of what's drilled is natural gas, which is not impacted by falling crude oil prices but which does have its own serious issues.