Pandemic lockdowns sent oil demand plummeting and markets into a tailspin in the spring. At one point, for the first time in history, US oil prices also turned negative. Summer, however, brought new optimism to the sector, with expectations of a controlled pandemic, a recovering economy, and a resurgent demand for oil increasing.
This year's oil decline is tremendous and destabilizing. Producers around the world are already radically rethinking their production plans, shutting down drilling rigs, and hitting pause on major projects.
Many manufacturers in the United States have gone bankrupt. In an effort to diversify its economy to be less dependent on oil as the primary source of growth, Saudi Arabia forced the larger group of countries called OPEC+ to cut production and pull prices out of the doldrums.
BP and Shell are among the giants of European oil and gas who have vowed to reshape their companies to concentrate more on zero-carbon fuels. Complete, the French energy firm, recently admitted that the move away from fossil fuels would cause some of its current oil investments to become "stranded assets," meaning they won't be as important as expected in a world that has diminished its oil dependence.