Gas has been relatively cheap for a long, long time now. Ever since the global economy collapsed in 2008, it hasn’t reached the same stratospheric heights. That looks like it will change soon, as the AP reports that OPEC has reached a preliminary agreement to cut production.
Of course, this is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries we’re talking about, which includes such as luminaries as Iran and Saudi Arabia. And Iran and Saudi Arabia hate each other very much, to the point where Iran is propping up rebels on Saudi Arabia’s border, Saudi Arabia is desperately trying to pound them into submission with a hell of a lot of explosives, Iran is publishing op-eds in the New York Times essentially asking for global permission to take out the Saudi royal family and the way it does business, and Saudi allies taking to the New York Times to tell Iran to “stop meddling in Arab affairs.”
So to get those two to agree on anything, let alone the 12 other countries in OPEC, is at this point nothing short of amazing. In fact just seven months ago Russia and Saudi Arabia tried teaming up to do the exact same thing, and gas prices have remained relatively static.
But you never know. Maybe the nations of OPEC saw how we’re all about to get electric cars that drive themselves and definitely do not attempt to take over the world.
Oil prices are already up five percent as people panic about everything, but whatever. Pretty soon cars will ruin the oil industry anyways and nothing will matter.