Excellent post !
Russia’s war on Ukraine and Hamas’ war on Israel have potential to cause significant flux in the oil markets. Since many have only a limited understanding of these markets, I will lay out some of what I have learned in the past 13 years, which is well short of enough. My initial interest was sparked by the deadly BP oil rig disaster in 2010. [I own some BP stock.]
There are 2 main per barrel oil prices recognized in the Western World. WTI, or West Texas Intermediate, is a low sulphur, jight density, valuable crude. It is generally quoted a little below the price of Brent Crude from northern Europe. There is a wide range in per barrel prices, from cheap Saudi Arabia, and Russian crude, to high priced North Dakota crude. Keystone was an attempt to import dirty cheap tar sands oil using a pipeline. It ran into trouble both because of environmental factors in production, and because of the Kalamazoo river system oil spill also in 2010, caused when Enbridge’s pipeline burst and flowed for 24 hours. It cost over a Billion dollars to clean up this spill. States to be crossed by Keystone pipelines were not eager for a repeat of Kalamazoo with the dirty, toxic tar sands oil. The link below covers this disaster and following clean-up in some detail.
https://beltmag.com/kalamazoo-river-line-6b-oil-spill/
In 2016, tar sands continued to be in the bad news as a town of 80,000 people was evacuated due to wildfire which also burned much of the town.
In 2023 many in the US were made aware of wildfires in Canada by orange skies and smoke in the air Again, the tar sands were threatened.
https://www.upstreamonline.com/safety/canadian-wildfires-threaten-oil-sands-production-rystad/2-1-1452915
When President Trump took office, oil supplies in storage were plentiful at the end of the Obama administration. The largest oil storage place in America and perhaps the world is in Cushing, Oklahoma. Below are figures for March 2015.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/05/cushing-oklahoma-small-town-is-holding-illions-in-black-gold.html
Cushing continued to fill up even higher, and gasoline prices came down as companies were eager to unload their soon to be excess supplies. Trump benefited from the happiness of gas consumers in this oversupply situation. At one point the oversupply became so bad that people were being paid to take oil away—free oil, amazing. Oil producers in places like N. Dakota where you need around $80 a barrel to make a profit stopped pumping, and drilling. Oil prices have recently moved above $80 a barrel and with current events they way they are, are likely to stay up there. N. Dakota and other expensive area producers are no doubt opening up their wells again. No doubt others are drilling, although it takes while for new drilling to affect the current price.
This link has many details about effects of Covid on pricing. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/from-the-barrel-to-the-pump.htm
This link shows how the price of oil fell to minus $40 one day thanks to Covid. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/oil-barrel-prices-economic-supply-demand-coronavirus-covid19-united-states/
This summer’s gas increases have several causes, high temperatures around refineries, and changes in production by Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc. are some.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2023/07/28/gas-prices-up-heat-wave-oil/70486841007/
If you have read even half the links posted, it should be apparent presidents have a minimal effect on the price of gas, at least in the short term. I will not try to engage in the long term policy implications of the above information.