Nick Fountain

Cheap gas, real cheap gas.

For a second there, OPEC was in disarray.

But it did not die.

OPEC rebuilt the quota system, added some members, regained their status as the most important player in the global oil market.

But recently, their power has waned.

Among other things, the U.S.

is now producing a ton of oil, which means OPEC is a smaller player.

And that, plus the normal cartel dynamics of everyone cheating, plus the war in Iran, has made keeping the gang all together harder than ever.

And that is part of the answer to the last piece of our listener Valerie's question.

Basically, what's up with the United Arab Emirates ditching OPEC?

We're going to tackle that bit after the break.

So the reason listener Valerie emailed us in the first place was, of course, because the United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, a bunch of oil wealth, recently decided to leave OPEC.

They left at the beginning of the month.

Why?

And what will this mean for Valerie when she's at the pump trying to fill up her diesel camper van?

For more on that, we called up legendary OPEC watcher Kate Durian.

Kate lived in the UAE for almost two decades, went to nearly every OPEC meeting for even longer.

She even brought her son along to some.

I think they had a sort of junior OPEC reporter badge made for him.

Apparently her son picked up the trade pretty quickly.