NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Wichita State University Economist Jeremy Hill will be in Hutchinson Feb. 6 from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Crystal Ballroom at The Burt for the 2024 Kansas Economic Outlook Conference's Reno County stop.
"I'm excited to come back," Hill said. "I think this is the third or fourth time that we've hosted, but I've also been in Reno County many other times talking about the county and the community and economic issues there. I will do a state forecast. I've got two of my staff coming to bring local data, so we're going to really dig down in manufacturing and health and business dynamism and we have a real estate economist from WSU also talking about the local community."
Hill said he is talking about energy's future at many of his stops this year.
"We have a long term optimistic outlook," Hill said. "The reason why is that our oil producers, who I've talked to many a time, they are family owned and the way they manage it is they are just going to wait until the time is right. The reality is, we are in a long process of moving away from fossil fuels to renewable. There's a long horizon, more so than we feel in the media, or what we're getting feedback on. So, the question is, when does our fossil fuel side or energy side really kick back in? They're on the sidelines. There's no reason for them to be engaged right now."
Part of that is policy and part of that is prices.
"They don't like what's going on with national policy," Hill said. "They're concerned about what's going on globally, because we had a lot of interference. Even if the barrel of oil looks like it gets up higher to a point where they could be profitable, probably around, being consistent, staying closer to $90-$95 a barrel, even if it does, they need these other political pressures to remove to make the big investment that is searching and drilling."
According to the Energy Information Administration, the last first purchase price over $90 a barrel in a month was in August of 2022.
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