A severe recession would put paid to energy stocks, a scenario...

A severe recession would put paid to energy stocks, a scenario no one would imagine because no one wants to contemplate negativity.
A severe recession is just one major systemic event away, and we know the prospect of a systemic event is not zero. And we know oil price can crash big time, as it did during GFC and Covid 2020 crash.
If you do not off-load when the gains were great, you're subjecting them to these prospects, however moot or remote as people perceive it. How people forget that oil almost went to $10 momentarily during the Covid crash. Unimaginable.