Almost two years ago, the Saudis acknowledged they had a problem. The price of oil was too low.

The oil-rich county had fought a surge in supply from American frackers by opening the taps, and the move pushed oil prices to their lowest level in decades.

Even though the Saudis and other OPEC members still held onto market share, they were bleeding cash because their government budgets were modeled on oil closer to $80 than $30.

After several years of gushing the black crude, Saudi Arabia led a movement inside OPEC, along with several non-OPEC producers like Russia, to trim supply and push the price of oil higher.

I was skeptical. No, that's not quite right.

Closer to the truth, I laughed at the notion that any member of this group would hold to their agreement to limit production. They'd so often lied to each other in the past.

Today, the price of oil is 80% higher than it was in 2016, and OPEC, along with its non-member co-conspirators, has kept to its agreement to shave production by 200,000 barrels per day, which has dramatically cut the global supply glut.

Add to that the geopolitical concerns swirling around our nuclear agreement with Iran and the potential for new sanctions that could cut Iranian oil supply, and you have a great recipe for sustained high oil prices.

To that, I only have one thing to say to OPEC, et al. Thank you, thank you very much!

The Saudis tried to stem the rise of American fracking companies by pumping more oil from 2012 to 2016, but the genie was already out of the bottle.

The increased supply weighed on the price of oil, and caused frackers and their investors a lot of pain, but the approach wasn't enough to overcome the technological advances made in the North American oil industry.

The land oil rig count in North America, which is mostly U.S. frackers now, peaked at 1,592 in October 2014.

With OPEC and others producing oil like mad and driving the price lower, oil companies here shut down their rigs, dropping the count to 292 by May 2016.