Replies

“if we drilled, fracked and pumped like there’s no tomorrow we could bankrupt Putins Russia easily”

The problem with this is we are not yet a dictatorship, so getting all the INDEPENDENT oil and gas companies to do something just because govt says so, is a non starter. Companies are currently not exercising large numbers of lease options because the cost of oil is still low enough that higher cost wells such as in the Dakotas are still not very profitable to be drilling or operating. When gasoline prices were really low we were producing oil like mad and every place we could store it was filled up. It got so bad that for a short time companies were giving the oil away and paying people to take it away.

Markets work, something the Russians are learning. Last I read, Russia was producing faster than they could get rid of their oil, and it was being stored in ships to the point of no more space available. Shipping to new available markets takes a lot longer than just pipe lining to Europe. Bargain prices such as to India have helped get new customers, and now India is happy selling Russia’s cheap oil back to Europe.
Starting and stopping producing wells is not a simple “turn off the lights” process, US oil companies with technical expertise are not longer working in Russia. Russia is having trouble getting insurance and other related market problems. So it seems like the bankrupting process is already working. They have done it to themselves by egoistic overreaching. Putin is not Peter the Great or Catherine the Great. He is doing a fair immitation of Ivan the Terrible.