[spwa4]

Yes but the point was that supply is very elastic since what happens to old fields is that they get priced out. When an oilfield gets older it's production cost creeps up, slowly. Since most of the oilfields that can produce at $current_price + 5$ aren't even properly shutdown yet, they can be rapidly brought online if prices rise, and there's a large supply of such fields. A very large supply of them.

Nobody's going without oil, it's just pushing up inflation. Not saying that's not a problem, but the problem isn't that people are being forced to go without.

Of course EU countries are complaining to high heaven since increased inflation will push their borrowing cost up further, and given the state of their public finances this means more sacrifices. If I lived in Paris, I'd park my car indoors for a month or two. Or 100km outside of Paris.

[bryanlarsen]

That's basically only true in OPEC countries, and OPEC countries are generally affected by the Hormuz closure.

Outside of OPEC marginal production is basically tar sands and fracking, which cannot be ramped up quickly.