—”A barrel of oil is 6.1 billion joules. That is the only value that matters.”
If that is your single metric, there are competing factors.
Since the Russian, only rubles for oil sales program was a flop; now for special customers China and India, yuan and rupees are accepted. September 2022 when they began accepting yuan for oil 1 yuan equaled ~8.8 rubles...
Today 1 yuan buys 11.8 rubles.
The ruble rupee chart is similar.
Such a deal!
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CNY&to=RUB
The Chinese and Indians are running a huge arbitrage operation and making big bucks.
Saudi Arabia and UAE on a smaller scale.
All of this depresses oil prices, as planned.
You missed the point.
There are no bux. There are only joules.