As the world reels from record high fuel prices, everyone is looking for scapegoats. Common theories include:

• It’s because President Joe Biden is caving to the climate alarmists and killing the oil industry by canceling drilling leases and ordering layers of needless regulations.
• It’s the greedy oil companies — already the richest on the planet — that are driving prices higher by cutting production.
• It’s the pandemic.
• It’s Putin’s war on Ukraine.
• It’s the Atlanta Falcons and Nick Saban! (OK, no one is saying that — yet).

Well, after searching the business and industry press, I discovered some of those are accurate. But not for the reasons you may think.

And best of all, some provide a glimmer of good news for the planet — and especially coastal Louisiana.

As in any product used across the world, the price you pay at the pump is determined by supply vs demand. When demand soars past supply, suppliers charge more because they can. It’s business.

No product is more susceptible to world demand than energy. Oil and gas companies ride the roller coaster of economy-impacting world events, cutting production when things look grim, drilling like crazy when the arrows point up. Oil states like Louisiana know this well, living through constant boom-and-bust cycles for almost 80 years.

So, when the pandemic sent the world into a great recession, oil companies found themselves sitting on massive supplies and drilling capacity built for a red-hot market, but very few buyers. That’s why oil prices went into negative territory for a short time. There was so little demand that oil producers were paying companies to store their products! The industry crashed, losing billions.

Eventually, the pandemic slowed and economies started coming back, boosting demand and prices.