It's hard not to notice how sky high gas prices are these days. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell us something about our personal transportation choices -- namely, that the status quo is untenable. This week on Sea Change Radio, Daniel Dicker is here to help us wade through the complex world of oil and gas prices. We discuss the various geopolitical facets that influence the prices of this valuable commodity, compare energy policy and consumer habits between the U.S. and the EU, and get Dicker's take on how gas prices may affect the 2024 Presidential election.

Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Dan Dicker (DD) | 00:16 - The markets are the markets. The markets decide prices, not politicians, but it always falls on deaf ears, and I don't expect it to do otherwise in the future.

Narrator | 00:36 - It's hard not to notice how sky high gas prices are these days. Perhaps the universe is trying to tell us something about our personal transportation choices, namely that the status quo is untenable. This week on Sea Change Radio, Daniel Dicker is here to help us wade through the complex world of oil and gas prices. We discuss the various geopolitical facets that influence the prices of this valuable commodity, compare energy policy and consumer habits between the US and the EU, and get Dicker’s take on how gas prices may affect the 2024 presidential election.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:30 - I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Daniel Dicker. Dan is an oil expert, an author, and people can follow his work and writings at DanDicker.com. Dan, welcome back to Sea Change Radio.

Dan Dicker (DD) | 01:47 - Well, thanks, Alex. Always nice to see you.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:49 - It's always nice to see you too, my friend. Every time I get, a little anxious at the pump, which a lot of Americans are doing these days, when I see these prices getting into the $6 range out here in San Francisco, I can't help but think, “why is this happening? And I'd like to know from Dan Dicker, what's up.” So prices have been moving up steadily since June. You could read a lot of different reasons into why, but what do you attribute it mostly to?

DD | 02:22 - Uh, well, I mean, there is in general a cycle that works through the oil markets. It's so common and you see it so often that sometimes predicting where prices are gonna go, while it seems to be a magic trick is anything. But, so with oil, what you generally have is, um, you know, the cycling for whatever reason of prices going very high and then very low. When prices go very high, you get the producers running to pump as much product as they can and, and therefore secure as much profit as they can. And the old saying is that high prices solve high prices, prices. So you get an overflow of product and the product overflows demand, and then prices go down, and then prices go way down. And what you have is a lot of producers who are going broke, forced to shut down production, can't make a living. So you have destructive or destructive nature inside the industry, and then you get a lot less production. And then if you have an event like you're coming out of a pandemic and all of a sudden demand surges again, you'll have a lot of demand. But not a lot of producers left who are capable of I meeting that demand, at least not immediately. So you'll have a lag, and sometimes it's a lag of six, eight months, sometimes a year before you know, the, the, the, uh, supply can catch up to the demand. And, uh, then you have the spiking in prices. And that's exactly what we've gotten over the last, uh, six months. We've had a period of very, very, or relatively low prices that was caused by a number of factors, both fundamental and frankly from, you know, the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve that slammed prices way down and those were unnatural prices. And, uh, they forced a lot of producers to cut back on production.