Everyone notices when gas goes up a dime. Almost nobody notices that behind that dime, CPI, FX, equities, and gold all twitched at once. Crude is the circulatory system of modern industry — pinch it anywhere and the whole economy spasms. Read oil's history scene by scene and you can see exactly when that artery clogged and when it burst.

Before OPEC — boringly cheap and steady

Through the 1950s and 60s, crude barely budged from $1–$3 a barrel. The U.S. was the runaway leader in both production and consumption, Western majors ran Middle East output, and price was set by politics, not markets. By today's standards it looks almost unreal how calm it was.

1973 — the first shock

When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Arab producers hit the West with an embargo. Crude went from $3 to $12 — 4x in a matter of months. That's where the inflationary 1970s began, and the U.S., Europe, and Japan all slid into slowdowns at the same time.

1979–1980 — again, harder

The Iranian revolution piled on top of the Iran-Iraq war, and crude shot into the $30s. Starting from $3 a decade earlier, that's roughly 10x. This is the moment the now-familiar dread — "prices outrun wages" — first lodged deep in the public mind.

1986 — the crash, the other direction

OPEC discipline fell apart and Saudi Arabia opened the taps. Crude halved from the $30s into the teens. Oil-nation budgets wobbled, and the shock echoed into U.S. financial markets too.

The 1990s — a decade where nothing much happened

Aside from a quick Gulf War spike in 1991, oil sat quietly between $15 and $25, with globalization and efficiency gains both pressing down on price.

2000–2008 — the supercycle, and $147

China grew at a terrifying clip and sucked up global demand, and Brent hit a record $147 in 2008. "$200 is coming" got said out loud, in earnest, all over the place. And then…

2008 — $147 to $33

The financial crisis vaporized demand and oil fell about 75% in months. Right here, the "commodities only go up" gospel that everybody recited shattered — a one-line faith broken in half a year.

The 2010s — shale flips the table

U.S. shale production exploded and late-2014 prices halved again, from the $100s to the $50s. Not demand this time but a supply revolution — a rare case of the supply side holding a lid on oil for years.

April 2020 — negative oil

Personally, this is the most surreal scene in the whole story. The pandemic erased demand, and expiring WTI futures, with nowhere left to store the stuff, fell to -$37 per barrel. For the first time ever, the seller had to pay the buyer to take crude off their hands.

2022–2024 — war, then rebalance

Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed Brent above $120 in 2022. Then the rate-hike cycle and slowing global growth dragged prices back into a $70–$90 band.

2026, right now

Early 2026, tension around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has cranked volatility back up. Oil is always a hostage to geopolitics — which is why the chart alone only tells you half the story.

Three axes for reading oil

1. Supply — OPEC, shale, geopolitics
2. Demand — growth, mobility, long-run electrification
3. Currency — dollar strength, the currency oil is priced in

Keep those three nailed down in your head, and the next time an oil headline drops, the "why" behind the move gets a whole lot sharper.