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by cscurmudgeon 1367 days ago
Ok, but what happened after that to get us to this state?
2 comments

An emboldened Russia started a war of conquest, drastically reducing supply. Though honestly there's plenty of effects from the coal market started by China's big moves, so it can't all be places on Russia. And Russia was going to do this at some point, it's been inevitable since their 2014 invasion, and also how their prior invasions and involvements have had almost zero pushback.
The pandemic made oil drilling + refining look like a bad investment, so the industry underinvested in new oil resources. Then Putin cut the oil and gas supplies to the world in an attempt to extort Europe into standing aside and accepting his conquest of Ukraine.
>Then Putin cut the oil and gas supplies to the world

It was (most of) EU and US that decided to stop buying oil from Russia. Everyone else keep doing it. EU and US can do too, just don't want to.

In addition, there was an explicit push by the Biden admin to make drilling less profitable (less permits, increased oil royalties, increased investor reporting requirements, and a PR push). It's not politically useful anymore - even the admin can't continue this while sanctioning Putin for his war of conquest - so people pretend it did not happen.