Soviet oil was in decline in 1990 (the peak was in 1986, so that was already visible), but what happened next was not peak-related: it was simply that (i) investment stopped, and (ii- eisting facilities were essentially looted, equipement that boke down was not replaced or was cannibalised for other uses. The oil production collapsed by 50% - and that made the boom after that all the easier, given that it as mostly about restarting abandoned, but known facilities and fields. And it was not done in an efficient way, to prolong production, but in the ways that would boost production - and revenues - as quickly as possible.

The other thing that is ignored is that oil is not gas, and Russian gas did not peak in 1990, and has not peaked now - and Gazprom never relinquished control - contrary to oil, the gas business was never broken into pieces, and it could be said thankfuly, given that gas i all about the pipeline infratructure. In any case, Yamal is Gazprom territory, and remains so today.

I'd note that the argument about $100 billion investments requiring the West is, once again, silly: Gazprom is 5 times bigger than the biggest Western oil&gas major, and has been able over the past 80 years to developa gas industry that has no equivalent anywhere in the world. It developed Urengoy and Yamburg a couple decades ago and, while Yamal is futher North (by a few hundred kilometers) and thus even harder technically speaking, it is hard to believe that any Western company would be better equipped to develop the reserves there than Gazprom. That semi-colonialist attitude comes out of Mark Jones' story and is still very common today.

That said, his story seems authentic - it certainly fits in the context of that time; it certainly does not mean that his analyses are fully correct.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes