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thelastgallontoday at 1:19 PM8 repliesview on HN

Demand destruction will collapse profits and accelerate the oil/dollar downfall. Saudi Arabia can profitably pump oil probably under $10/barrel. If demand drops, thats where oil should be.

China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia). This is probably the biggest transition in the history of mankind. This is energy production, storage and all the appliances that use electricity. After this, its incredibly hard for any other country to compete.


Replies

samrustoday at 2:09 PM

> China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia)

I dont agree with china having the same position as the FF exporters. Simply because with renewables, you export the means to produce energy rather than the energy itself. So in terms of monetary value, china will be selling alot less panels than the FF countries sell oil. And other countries can also manufactor renewables tech themselves, while with oil they couldnt materialize it under their feet

Basically i think the paradigm of the energy trade being cornered for politcal controll wont exost with renewables. Renewables are decentralized and so not controllable

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Danoxtoday at 5:51 PM

Oil and gas is more valuable for other uses besides burning it up into thin air. Humans have just been pretty sloppy any country that has plenty of oil and gas won’t go broke.

bobthepandatoday at 4:45 PM

This is actually not the first major energy transition.

The world moved from coal to oil for transport and shipping fairly quickly due to the higher energy density and significantly easier handling of liquid vs solid fuels. Using pipes and tubes was a huge labor savings compared to having people shovel coal into a hard to control boiler.

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PowerElectronixtoday at 5:19 PM

Saudi Arabia can profit at those prices, but it can't sustain its living standards at those prices unless they pump like crazy. I recall reading that it was around 40 bucks a barrel where things would start looking not ideal for the princes.

toomuchtodotoday at 1:49 PM

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices at ~$86.60/barrel to balance their budget, per Bloomberg. It is not the marginal cost to pump a barrel, but what a country needs to support their sticky spending from previously assured energy exports. Governments will collapse long before we approach low single digit oil prices on the global market.

The World Is Awash With Oil and Prices Are Poised to Keep Falling - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-global-oil-supply-pr... | https://archive.today/hkhtI - December 18th, 2025 (Control -F "Crude Price Forecasts Are Below Levels Needed for Budgets")

> China with [EVs|Solar|BESS|Turbines] will replace all of the fossil fuel countries (US, middle-east, Russia). This is probably the biggest transition in the history of mankind. This is energy production, storage and all the appliances that use electricity. After this, its incredibly hard for any other country to compete.

Strongly agree. China is replacing petrostate economic demand with demand for their clean tech products, which keeps their deflationary economy afloat, provides them soft power, and will transition the yuan to a global reserve currency. Today countries by dollars to by petroleum ("petrodollar"); tomorrow, countries will want yuan to buy "manufacturing fiat," to trade with the world's factory (China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity, as of this comment). Stocks of assets vs flows of energy.

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rsanektoday at 2:58 PM

China is much more of a "fossil fuel country" than the US. They've got a ways to go to even catch up.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=stacked-di...

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socotoday at 2:09 PM

But, how much of the extracted oil becomes ICE fuel? Because other transports cannot be converted that quick (air, sea...) and most if not all petrochemical industries will still need to exist even if all cars drive electric. So how big will be the effect of crashing fuel demand?

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4gotunameagaintoday at 2:31 PM

If the price were to drop all the way down to $10/barrel, demand would skyrocket.

The future where oil demand is so low and and will remain low even after low prices is much further ahead I'm afraid.