That’s essentially correct.
Russia has an added problem, though, because if they cut back from regions of permafrost, those wells can be long-term damaged, and the Western expertise that kept ‘em running in those harsh conditions anyway has all left. If they cut back from more, uh, benevolent areas, overall profits decline further.
February being even worse than January rather quashes the idea Jan. was just a fluke. China and India are gloating behind Pooty’s back for sure. But IF this continues, Russia has a big problem. In addition, I still think Saudi & co. might take the opportunity to knock out a major competitor for years by raising production this fall. They tried this vs. the US in the past, but the US always bounced back fairly quickly. We don’t have that permafrost problem, except for limited production in Alaska.
Peter Zeihan has been taking about this for months in his you tube videos. When Russian oil comes up in their permafrost regions wells there is water content mixed in with the crude oil. If the oil is not moved out to pipelines and onwards to export terminals....Then this crude stays trapped and stagnant. Then the water will freeze and burst/ crack open wellheads and pipes. In fact this took place in the early 1990s when Russia was in chaos. It took 20 years to repair all this damage. The repairs were done by European oil service companies. The Roooskies didn't have their shyte together to do this.