In October of ‘73 I just had my license for one week! My first tank fill up was 56¢ a gallon. A week later I paid $1.20 a gallon! I think it went down below a dollar again when Clinton was President.
When fuel jumped in the early 00’s, one of my uncles said something very similar.
Crude oil dropped to $7/barrel back then, pushing lots of independent drillers out of business, capping lots of wells. I saw $.79 gas in 99/00 somewhere in that time period. THEN, with less competition, OPEC had free reign to gouge the hell out of the world, and they did.
It was very timely in my life, as I was SO broke back then. My Civic got 44 mpg, and I was able to survive the low income years.