They are not mutually exclusive though. It's certainly true we are pumping less oil than in 2019 because the economic depression caused by the pandemic caused demand, and hence oil prices to crash into the negatives briefly, causing lots of US & Canadian oil companies to go out of business, and wells were capped to reduce supply. And the companies that remain are being forced to be frugal and use the profits from high prices to buyback stocks and issue dividends, not drill new wells. Like I said, investors don't want companies to invest tons of capex into new wells if there's a possibility prices will crash again, driving those companies out of business like the previous ones. The Ukraine crisis may have changed some minds on that however.Can't agree with your response. We are pumping less oil than we were at our previous, recent, peak and oil production is being discouraged. The pipeline to which you refer needs to continue being constructed to completion for financial, gasoline costs and other reasons. Lotsa pipeline workers out of a 100k year jobs.
It's also not exactly true they are being discouraged. As I said, they own plenty of untapped land that they could use that they don't need permission to use, but are choosing not to (for the reasons above). If they really wanted to drill and pump more oil, they could easily do so, but it's not in their investors best interests to do so. And I think the pipeline should have been built probably, but not where it was being built. That said, once it was completed there were not projected to be that many permanent jobs, and construction workers are also at a premium right now anyway- like with every other industry.
Last edited: