"Certainly they benefit, but they don’t nearly benefit as much … as other owners –- and we are talking about countries that own the oil," says Dr. Walden, a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"In fact, country-owned oil companies account for 90 percent of the ownership of the known oil and gas reserves. And we have examples like the countries of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Venezuela and Russia.

"These are countries that actually own the oil companies in their countries. So they are obviously getting rich.

"In fact, Exxon -- which is one of the biggest private owned oil companies -- they ranked only 14th in the world in the value of oil companies," Walden adds. "So when we see the price of oil rising, it’s really those nationalized companies and countries where there are big oil reserves –- they’re the ones that really benefit the most."