...for the first time ever, I'm led to believe.
Some scholars of the global oil industry had 18 months ago been postulating this, specifically pointing out that OPEC+ doesn't have the spare capacity that is conventionally believed to be the case. (That this conventional wisdom persists despite OPEC+ countries failing to meet quotas every month since July 2021 is bizarre, but is a discussion for another time).
Now we have a G7 leader communicating the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is maxed out
So that reflects the severe constraints on the supply side.
And on the demand side, like the following example, we have governments handing taxpayer monies back to them, effectively acting as subsidies which keeps demand higher than it otherwise would have been:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stimul...lation-relief-payments-23-million-up-to-1050/
In summary:
Constrained Supply + Stimulated Demand
[Oh, and over just the past 8 months, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drained to levels that are 40-year lows, so there's that little factoid to consider....]
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(20min delay)