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oil prices keep dropping. What, what does this mean for gas prices by next month august Well without any disruptions and we can make it through without *** hurricane. That means the national average could get closer to falling under that $4 mark. We could see 399 for *** national average by the end of August, so long as there's no unexpected turnarounds. Uh, in terms of the economy or hurricanes. Um, why, why do gas prices shoot up so fast? But they take forever to come down? Well, *** lot of that is because there's actually *** lag time stations often don't raise prices for several days after their own cost goes up. And while the trend is higher, while prices are rising, stations are constantly behind on passing along increases. When prices start going down, stations pass along the decreases slower to recoup the margin they lost when prices went up. That's interesting. Um, who's making the money here? Right. So the gas prices shoot up there near $5, $6, $7 in some places. *** lot of talk settle this, who's making the money is, you know, some people have accused the gas stations of making the extra money. The biden administration has said the oil companies are taking all the money. What's the deal? *** little bit of truth all around that is oil companies are extremely profitable right now along with refineries who take that oil and to refine it into things like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Uh, they are seeing, uh, certainly *** banner year for profits. Gas stations generally are making the smallest amount of profit out of all three of those. But even right now with prices plummeting, gas stations are making much more than they normally do. The gas stations make more money when the prices are really high or prices are really low. Uh, they could, it's not about high and low for stations, it's about the trend. When prices are trending up, they generally don't do good at all. Which is why this year has been very challenging. But when prices go down, that's when they start doing better, simply they pass along the decreases slower than they get them themselves, increasing their margin temporarily until they pass the discounts fully along. There's been *** great debate about why this is all happening right. You have inflation that's through the roof. But, you know, the biden administration has called this the Putin gas hike, right? Putin gas prices, is it the Ukrainian war or is it something else? Well, *** lot of it really is still brought on by covid the imbalances that we've seen *** nation basically stopped in its tracks back in 2020 that caused oil companies to basically shut down for several months refineries in some cases, permanently shut down. And now the economy has really started to heat back up. And that was made worse. Exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine suddenly, as demand was increasing, supply was plummeting partially because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which drew sanctions on Russia. So all of this really at the top was *** problem made worse by covid than exacerbated even more by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Um, so do you see price? You see prices coming down to maybe less than $4 by the end of August, does it stay there? Does it, can we expect another huge hike? Well, there's *** lot in extreme, I'd say amount of volatility in markets right now. So even the August prediction that we could fall under $4 is not *** guarantee if we get better economic data or *** hurricane or any disruption. We could see gas prices going right back up or into new record territory. Now, the coast isn't clear, but it's everything does go the way we are hoping We could see prices declining under $4 *** gallon. But again, *** lot of volatility, we may go up before we go down and that could happen at *** moment's notice. So really beyond the next few weeks, you could say things are clear as mud. That is. Even investment banks don't know where oil prices are going to be citibank calling for $60 oil, Jpmorgan calling for over $300 *** barrel. The truth is, anything could really happen. But for the next few weeks, relief is on the way, There's *** lot of talk about why we're not drilling for more oil here. Right. The republicans say the democrats aren't allowing enough drilling here and that's why the president has to go to Saudi Arabia to try to cozy up with them to get some to get some oil here. The biden administration says no no no we've given out all the permits. It's the gas companies, the oil companies that don't want to do it. So what's the truth again? There's *** little bit of truth on both sides. The real problem here is Covid. Now we have seen us domestic oil production go up under President biden. Now it's not he can't take credit for it. This is natural as oil prices go up, oil companies have more incentive to drill And since 2021 US oil production has gone up over *** million barrels. So domestic production is increasing not because of anything biden has done, but because oil companies have incentive now, President biden maybe could accelerate things by by changing his agenda or changing his priorities. But still, even if President biden pretend turned into *** Republican to approve the keystone to prove drilling everywhere. It's gonna take years for that drilling for that exploration to an increase in domestic world production. So it's years away from happening. And that's where the truth lies is that there's no quick overnight solution, especially considering Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there's no ability for anyone in the next five years to replace Russian oil. And that's the problem with this equation is that even if we do increase oil production here in the United States, it's still going to be *** drop in the bucket compared to what what Russia can produce. I've heard that the oil companies, even though they have the permits to drill in the U. S. Their. Their explanation of not wanting to open up these big rigs and and start, you know, *** five year project is because of all the talk of moving to clean energy, they don't want to put five years into starting *** project that's only gonna be legislated away. Absolutely. And that's part of the reason why the optics behind President biden going after the the sector and and and making an energy transition is likely having an impact on future oil production. That is, as you mentioned, no oil company is going to spend billions of dollars investing in something that the administration wants to disappear. So that's where the president could offer improvement is talk all about transition you want. But in the here and now we still need fossil fuels, we need oil. So the president should be more clear on his plan to transition. Don't just talk about 2030. But talking about how we're going to get there so that oil companies have some sort of idea on if investments will pay off