Oil and Gas

Gas prices are high. You know it has something to do with oil. You suspect OPEC is involved. You've heard that the President should do something about it. Beyond that, most people are working with a mental model that is incomplete, oversimplified, and often wrong.

Oil and Gas provides the foundation for actually understanding one of the most important and most misunderstood commodity markets in the world.

Seven things most people don't know: what actually happens between the oil well and the gas pump — and why prices rise faster than they fall. Who really sets the price of oil — supply and demand, OPEC, financial markets, the Strait of Hormuz, and the geopolitical risk premium that moves prices before anything has actually happened. Why the President of the United States has far less control over gas prices than politicians claim and voters believe — and what presidents can and cannot actually do. Why the refining step is a significant, capacity-constrained, and often overlooked contributor to gas prices and price volatility. How the American shale revolution made the US the world's largest oil producer — and why that hasn't lowered gas prices for American consumers, because oil is a globally priced commodity. What the Strategic Petroleum Reserve actually is, what it can realistically accomplish, and what happens when it is used for political convenience rather than genuine emergencies. And what the energy transition means for oil and gas prices over the next several decades — including why the path to lower prices may run through higher prices first.

Written against the backdrop of the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis — the largest disruption to global energy supply since the 1970s — Oil and Gas provides the context that makes the daily headlines comprehensible.

Part of the I'm No Expert, But series: short, accurate, accessible books on topics that are more surprising than most people expect. Readable in under an hour. The kind of book that leaves you thinking: I'm glad I know that now.