Just a reminder that oil companies lost lots of money on oil during the pandemic.
$25 Billion in losses in just the first 3 months of the pandemic alone.
Their gains today come with the ups and downs of the market. Taking a snapshot of either scenario is very short-sighted and doesn’t tel the whole picture which is that oil companies take risk on the market price of oil and sometimes they win big and sometimes they lose big.
Right now they are winning big, but it wasn’t long ago they also lost big, yet invested for days like today so they could make their losses back.
Policy remains a deterrent for producers to pump more. This will need to change in the long run if we expect the cost of oil to eventually come back down.