Comments by "Geoff Lepper" (@geofflepper3207) on "How Falling Oil Prices Could Bring Down Putin" video.

@ayoCC that seems to be the case. NATO did not want Russia to be selling oil at a loss because then Russia might cut production (though even if Russia is making a small profit I wonder if it would make sense to cut production to drive up the price of its oil). I wonder what is meant by the cost of production per barrel. Oil field development must involve a lot of (literally) sunk costs that a country might incur to develop an oil field that might last decades. Does the stated cost per barrel include the fixed sunk costs or just the marginal cost of producing more oil in an already developed oil field? The ideal strategy for NATO might be to try to ensure that Russia gets a high enough price to slightly exceed variable marginal costs so that Russia continues to sell oil but not enough for Russia to get back the fixed cost expenses it already incurred in developing oil fields.
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Despite the title the video gave the impression that Russia is doing pretty well despite sanctions. And yet reports are that the Russian government had a deficit of 30 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2023 and is heading towards running out of reserve funds by sometime between this December and mid-2024 at which point it would be effectively bankrupt. And as well the Russian ruble has been quickly losing value as it seems that Russian authorities have given up trying to keep it artificially high by wasting precious foreign currency buying rubles. And it seems that Russia has exhausted its stores of missiles and is now firing only what it can produce and that Russia will effectively run out of tanks by sometime later this year and even that Russia is firing fewer shells presumably because its stores are getting depleted. Plus its soldiers keep dying or getting wounded or captured at a very high rate. It costs a lot of money to produce or buy new tanks, missiles and shells and to train and equip new soldiers to replace those that are lost. If Russia really is running a deficit of 10 billion dollars a month and its reserves have been greatly depleted then it is very hard to imagine how Russia can continue to fight the war past the first quarter of 2024 unless it introduces huge tax increases on Russian citizens and companies and I don't think that would go over well and that could push Russia into deep recession and I doubt that impoverished Russian citizens have any money to spare, especially as they deal with high inflation and interest rates.
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