The prices of oil and gas are up and down as always, but they don't seem as unpredictable as they used to, and one reason is the cooperation between nations to keep it all flowing and going.
Those markets also seem to be taking a broader view of world politics, which might explain why the prices of oil and gasoline didn't go through the roof when Israel and then the US bombed Iran last month
The energy markets have for years been tied increasingly to worldwide geopolitical events, geologist and author Art Berman says, and while that causes more volatility than some may want, it also brings a certain stability when shocking events are short and contained, like the Iran attacks.
Still, many of the people used to writing about and explaining the oil markets continue to cite the vagaries of demand and national politics as causes for oil price rises and falls, in what may now be viewed as a rather old fashioned way.
"You know, we're kind of into this silly cause and effect thing, which I'm not going to say that it doesn't have some effect," Berman says, but the old standard explanations for why oil and gas prices jump and drop are more readily explained by geopolitics than was true 50 years ago.
And President Trump has been working to smooth other markets while trying to keep energy steady.
"Everything he's doing, including tariffs, are an attempt to devalue the dollar, basically, versus global currencies, and that way our goods will be more marketable in the world."
So while it increasingly looks like nations such as Russia and China are hostile toward the West and the US, those hostilities aren't boiling over, burning the steady flow of oil and gas on international transportation markets.
After all, oil is perhaps the greatest indicator of wealth and security for all world societies -- but is also one of the great potential weapons that the US could use if, for instance, China were to become truly menacing.
"Just make it harder for them to get oil from places like Iran, or Russia...or us, for cryin' out loud!"