It has been almost eight months since the EU prohibited the transport of Russian oil but the price has remained in a stable range of $70-80/bbl. Though removing Russian oil from the physical market was not the motive but even the impact on its revenue has been limited. This has been accomplished as it found large buyers in China and India.
During this period even OPEC+ became more active in its policy decisions to keep supply and demand in check and also the price. All this can be taken as a successful implementation as the price fall was limited despite a 2.5 times increase in net shorts by asset managers.
As most of the possible downside events have taken place and the price is stable. The problem of the second half might be on the upside as any supply reduction or volatile physical market would result in a price increase. And given the global economy, another round of inflation led by energy would be negative.
This would result in further rate hikes globally in a period of slow or negative growth rate. The impact of such a scenario would be more on the real economy than the financial world. And this would result in a slower and longer road to recovery.
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