Fixing Oil's PR Problem - What Consumers Believe vs. Reality

This opinion piece presents the opinions of the author.
It does not necessarily reflect the views of Rigzone.

If you spent a few hours stopping people on the street and asking whether or not they like the oil industry, chances are you wouldn’t find many folks who are huge fans. A recent Gallup poll confirms this with numbers showing that the majority of Americans either dislike or have no feelings about the oil industry; only 34 percent feel positively about it.

What’s more, that 34 percent is actually a huge improvement over years past. Previous polls have shown the industry struggling even more to gain public approval. In 2012, another Gallup poll showed that Americans hate oil companies more than the federal government.

So why do Americans feel so negatively about the oil industry?

Digging deeper, there seem to be three catching points that keep the public from feeling good about the oil companies. Here’s a closer look at what the public believes, what is actually true and how the two can be reconciled moving forward.

Sticker Shock

Gasoline prices account for the biggest touch-point that the oil industry has with consumers. Most Americans perceive the oil industry as a singular entity that forces them to pay up week after week at the pump. And when gas prices are high, that perception tends to create negative associations.

Unfortunately, most Americans don’t understand how the pricing of gasoline really works, and they shoulder oil companies with 100 percent of the responsibility for high prices. In practice, oil companies play a small role in a huge, multi-faceted system of which each piece impacts the price consumers pay at the pump.

Gallup elaborates on the relationship gas prices have with consumer approval:

Historically, there is a statistically strong, albeit imperfect, relationship between gas prices and Americans' views of the oil and gas industry. From 2001 to 2003 – when the August price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. averaged around $2, adjusting for inflation – the percentage of Americans rating the industry positively was higher than the historical average of 23 percent. And views of the oil and gas industry have improved since 2012 as the price of gas has fallen.

Where’s the Source?

They don’t call it “Texas tea” for nothing. Despite the long-standing perception that the world’s oil comes primarily from the Middle East, the fact of the matter is that the Middle East is no longer the only game in town when it comes to crude production. In fact, enormous amounts of oil are entering the market from countries that might surprise you.

It’s easy to criticize the oil industry when you think it lives primarily outside your own country, and that’s exactly what Americans seem to be doing. They fail to realize that the United States is now one of the biggest players in oil production on the planet.

According to Bloomberg, the United States surpassed both Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s number one producer of oil. That raises the question, how would most Americans feel if they knew oil is now such a homegrown industry?

Environmental Concerns

The third and final reason that the public holds such a grudge against the oil industry has to do with the environment. For decades, the oil industry has been seen as one of the biggest perpetrators of environmental pollution. Unfortunately, this perception comes from a handful of isolated incidents of pollution that were highly publicized – oil spills, rig failures, pipeline bursts, etc. These events are exceptions to the industry’s ongoing efforts to preserve the environment and reduce its impact.

In fact, certain aspects of oil production have not only kept the environment clean, but actually made it cleaner. The well-known practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the United States is often criticized, but it’s responsible for an abundant domestic supply of natural gas; natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels and it’s being substituted for coal across the country; when natural gas is burned, it creates only a fraction of the emissions caused by coal or gasoline combustion. According to Aries Residence Suites, this means cleaner air, less mining, and overall better environmental conditions.

Although completely counter intuitive to most Americans, the oil industry can be credited with creating a cleaner environment.

Changing Public Opinion

There’s no magic bullet for altering the public’s view of the oil industry. However, the ongoing effort to spread positive, truthful news to thought leaders across various communities, media outlets and other industry verticals serves as a wise course of action. The ultimate goal should always be to promote a mutually beneficial relationship between members of the oil industry and the consumers they serve.

How good of a job do you think the industry has done to accomplish that goal in the past? What do you think it can do to improve in the future?



WHAT DO YOU THINK?


Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

Toby Mack  |  December 23, 2015
Very well put! What is unfortunately missing from most public perceptions of the oil industry is that it is also comprised of over 100,000 companies, most of them small, and over 1,000,000 workers, who provide products and services to oil companies. This is the oil and gas supply chain - contractors, equipment suppliers, manufacturers of machinery and supplies, trucking companies, and so on.They exist in all 50 states, not just in a handful of oil patch states. For every one job at a oil or gas producer, there are three in this vast supply chain. So when you think oil industry, youre also talking about your brother-in-law who works for the machine shop across town in places like St. Louis, Chicago, Des Moines, Tampa, etc., who makes fittings for hoses used on a well site in North Dakota. Sure its about the price of gas, but just as much about your communitys economy and jobs. And you can thank the fracking revolution for all of it!

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