How to Handle Higher Gas Prices

No one can predict exactly when and by how much energy prices will rise or fall.

Jeffrey Folks | March 22, 2026

Recently, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent stated that oil prices would begin to fall once it is safe for tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.  This seems very likely, but even Bessent could not predict exactly when this will be.

The price of oil and gas is a factor of supply and demand along with other factors such as regulation, taxation, and local availability.  At the moment, prices are high because some twenty percent of global production is stranded with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.  The Iran situation is only one factor determining the price of oil, but it is an important one.

No one can predict exactly when and by how much energy prices will rise or fall.  What we can say is that, at present, reserves and potential production are more than enough to meet demand, so once the bottleneck is removed and with other factors remaining the same, prices may fall, and possibly a lot.  It is impossible to predict exactly when that will happen, but when it does, producers will respond by reducing investment in new production, and prices will rise again back to the level of profitability.  That is the nature of the energy market.  It is inherently cyclical, though it may have become less so as a result of more careful fiscal controls at the large oil and gas companies.

It’s a mistake to look at the large gas station signs displaying the price of a gallon of gas and conclude that this is the price of gas.  That is the momentary price in one location.  That information is largely meaningless.  The........

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