I agree. THere’s an inelastic portion to the oil demand, and a more elastic portion (like “Gas is five bucks a gallon, should I take a driving vacation”) part.
I remember noting that oil went from $140 to (briefly) $30 per barrel during the 2008-9 period, while demand dropped about 4%, from 84 million barrels per day to 81 million.
In addition to daily drilling supply, the market is complicated by lots of storage—tankers, for example—so response to supply/demand balance isn’t immediate. And then, there’s the fact that production in place will continue to produce for a while at marginal cost to avoid shutting in costs.
Habits are more likely to change quickly with large price increases than large price decreases with a relatively inelsatic product.