Everywhere in the world, moving from control to decontrol of prices creates turbulence and also political costs.

We have high crude prices. We have low inventories. We have strong demand. All of that would be a recipe for a taut market even with refineries (running at full capacity).

We are living in a different world now. You can see it everywhere in international relations: It was noteworthy that, after his visit to Washington, the Chinese president's next stop was Saudi Arabia.

In real terms, consumers today are paying considerably less for gasoline than they did during World War I.

I think the producers, for the most part, don't want to see prices skyrocket because that will only create problems for them down the road and would also be a, you know, would be a very serious shock for a world economy that can't afford serious shocks right now.

The world oil market is in the grip of a slow-motion supply shock, in which a $70 to $75 barrel price reflects an aggregate disruption of over 2 million barrels a day.