Diego Parrilla

Back in the day, you know, when we published that book, people were like, are you crazy?

Of course, oil is going to go to 500 because there's only enough barrels and we're going to run out.

And I was like, look...

The reason OPEC has been so successful and one of the big misconceptions in the system

was the belief that OPEC was successful because it was an oligopoly, i.e.

I control the supply, I control the price.

And one of the conclusions that I, together with my co-author, I reached is OPEC's success and oil success is not so much an oligopoly of supply, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

It's actually a monopoly of demand.

And it turned out that

transportation demand.

So for decades, you know, our cars or buses or trains or ships, they were all fueled by crude oil derivatives, gasoline, diesel, jet.

And there was virtually zero competition for transportation.

So as

the world globalized and transportation demand increased, and you were the only game in town, that control of supply allowed you to do that.

But then you wake up to a world where technology, LNG, you start fueling trains or buses with LNG, with electric cars, et cetera.

We've created competition for transportation demand, and that's how the whole thing crumbled.

So again, I put a thesis out there before it happened.

And as things happen, it's pretty obvious after the fact.

But it does come through this

thesis analysis and trying to, you know, not take these beliefs as gospel, you know, just to try to challenge the why is this the case and that causality.