Biden 'is going to have to worry' about rising gas prices 'a lot more,' Canary CEO warns

Dan Eberhart, the CEO of Canary drilling services, predicted Thursday that the price of oil and gas is "headed higher" and warned that President Biden "'is going to have to worry about this a lot more."

On Thursday, oil pulled back by 1% trading around the $71 per barrel level. However, the day before, West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, ended at $72.36 a barrel, up 31 cents or 0.4%. 

Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled at $75.82, up 38 cents, or 0.5%, as it seems investors no longer expect the omicron coronavirus variant to have a significant global economic growth.

The national average for a gallon of gas on Thursday was slightly lower than the day before at $3.34, but $1.18 higher than the year before, according to AAA. 

Speaking to the recent drop in oil prices, Eberhart told "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" that "the market overreacted to the omicron demand destruction."

He then explained why he believes oil prices are "headed higher." 

"OPEC is supposed to add 400,000-barrels-a-day a month. They’re struggling to do that right now," Eberhart told host Neil Cavuto.  "And on top of that, we’ve got an inflationary economic environment, so I think oil is headed higher."

It was revealed last month that U.S. consumer prices accelerated at the fastest annual pace in more than 30 years in October as supply chain bottlenecks and materials shortages persisted and gasoline prices surged.

The consumer price index climbed 6.2% year over year in October, the Labor Department said. The increase marked the largest annual gain since November 1990. Prices rose 0.9% month over month. 

Energy prices jumped 4.8% last month and were up 30% over the past year. The October increase was largely the result of a 6.1% rise in the cost of gasoline. 

CONSUMER PRICES SURGE BY MOST IN 31 YEARS

Eberhart argued Biden’s "policies are pushing gas pricing up" and that the president "doesn’t care for the price for energy that consumers are paying."

He pointed to Biden’s moves related to energy, which included revoking the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project on his first day in office in a series of orders aimed at combating climate change, which also included temporarily suspending the issuance of oil and gas permits on federal lands and waters.

In August, the White House tried to blame OPEC and Russia for rising gas prices after the Biden administration hamstrung U.S. oil producers with policies that hampered domestic oil and gasoline production and asked for the international community to produce more oil. 

Last month, President Biden called for the Federal Trade Commission to probe whether oil and gas companies are engaging in criminal conduct by profiting from artificially high prices at the pump, even as wholesale fuel costs decline.

Biden – under mounting political pressure with inflation at the highest rate in more than three decades – urged FTC Chair Lina Khan in a letter to investigate potential wrongdoing by the industry, alleging "mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior" by the companies.

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"I think what he [Biden] is showing is he cares more about hurting oil companies in general and he cares more about pushing a progressive kind of Green New Deal type agenda than he does about energy prices," Eberhart argued. "That is what I am seeing if you look at the policies."

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment. 

"Gasoline prices are 60% higher than they were a year ago, and it’s largely because of Joe Biden’s policies," Eberhart added, arguing that the president is not really "concerned with energy prices going up for consumers if you look at the policies and progressive agenda he is pushing." 

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FOX Business’ Jonathan Garber and Megan Henney contributed to this report.