E.J. Antoni

probably the biggest tailwind, though, for this economy right now is still the effects of the big, beautiful bill.

The surge in investment that we have seen, along with productivity growth, all of those things are going to, I think, try to help keep this economy afloat, even as we have to fight through $100 oil.

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

Certainly.

So OPEC is essentially an oil cartel that was founded decades ago, and they exist to try to put artificial upward pressure on oil prices by restricting how much their member nations can pump.

And so by reducing supply, you put upward pressure on prices.

And it's a way to essentially give them a kind of artificial monopoly power on the global oil market.

I'd say the biggest piece of context actually isn't even that recent.

It's the fracking boom here in the United States.

And with technologies like

hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, et cetera, that really weakened the hold that OPEC had.

And it really weakened the benefits of being a member nation in OPEC or OPEC+.

And I think you're going to probably continue to see that cartel fall apart as time goes on here.

And essentially, it has a snowball effect because every time a member leaves the cartel, it reduces the benefits that other member nations have of staying there.

And again, context here is that once the Iran war finally concludes, which we hope and pray is very soon, and the Strait reopens, there's going to be a huge surge in demand as nations around the world try to refill their depleted petroleum reserves.

And being outside of OPEC gives a nation like the UAE much more flexibility in terms of how much they're going to increase production and therefore reap more profits as they cash in on

on, again, these nations trying to refill their reserves.

Right now, they're producing a little more than 4 million barrels a day.

They can very likely get over 5 million, so a 25% increase just within the next year or two.