President Trump posted two things on his social media platform this morning: One calling for “everyone” to “keep oil prices down” and another calling on the Department of Energy to “drill, baby, drill.”

With the caveat that that’s not how any of this works, oil prices have risen a bit in the last few weeks, since Israel, and then the U.S., attacked Iran. And higher prices could benefit U.S. oil companies — which, despite the president’s rhetoric, have been reluctant to increase domestic oil production in recent months.

Before crude prices began rising earlier this month, there was already a lot of oil on the market, and OPEC countries were talking about increasing supply even more. The outlook for global economic growth, and oil demand, was shaky, said Hugh Daigle at the University of Texas at Austin. 

“And so, in general, the producers have been exhibiting a lot of discipline in not expending a lot of capital, not really, you know, increasing their drilling rate and their rig count,” he said.

On top of that, tariffs on steel have added to producers’ costs, because drilling for oil requires a lot of the metal.

So even though oil prices may be a bit more favorable for U.S. producers now, a lot of them may hold off on drilling. The ones that could start, Daigle said, are smaller.

“I'm thinking particularly of ones that might operate in West Texas, in the Permian Basin. They could say, ‘Hey, maybe let's drill a couple of additional wells and bring them online right now, while we can,’” he said.

Drilling isn’t a sure bet because oil prices are jumping around a lot due to geopolitical risks, not any fundamental change in supply or demand, said Morgan Bazilian, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines and former lead energy specialist at the World Bank.

“That kind of price situation, especially the volatility and the uncertainty, rarely makes for a clear investment decision anywhere, including domestically,” he said.

Still, even if they don’t expand drilling, U.S. oil companies will benefit from higher prices, said Clark Williams-Derry, and energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“The oil industry is probably going to be content to just sort of sit back, take higher profits, and not adjust their drilling plans,” he said.

What could get them to actually expand drilling, Williams-Derry said, is if oil prices jumped up even further and stayed high. 

But bringing that production online would take months.