Over the course of 2021 both consumers and the petroleum industry came to the widespread realization that the extraction of oil had begun to decrease compared with rates in the 2010s, rapidly driving up prices while demand failed to fall at comparable levels. Efforts to increase the scale of offshore drilling off of Osea's Atlantic coast and in Forster Bay mitigated supply issues for the next two years, but the threat of increasing scarcity contributed to rising prices. Without any significant domestic reserves remaining after the east coast's depletion in 2018, the Usean Union was particularly hard-hit as oil imports became more expensive, and by 2025 a mass exodus out of the nation's burgeoning suburbs began. This new wave of urban growth greatly decreased Usea's use of petroleum for personal automobiles, but much of the nation's energy infrastructure remained based around petroleum- and natural gas-fired electric plants as 20th Century wind, solar, and geothermal programs proved unable to sufficiently power the growing economy, and most coal-firing plants shut down in the 2010s due to the cost prohibitive nature of carbon capture and storage. While oil companies focused their efforts on meeting Osea's continued demand, the Usean Union turned to General Resource and Neucom to construct nuclear fusion and microwave power transmission facilities - along with solar power satellites to support the latter - by the end of the decade. Although costly, the new energy infrastructure and its quick implementation limited economic losses due to the peak oil crisis, and the enormous government energy contracts propelled both General Resource and Neucom into their hegemonic positions in the 2030s and beyond.
In stark contrast to Usea, Yuktobania suffered both severe economic losses and millions of deaths attributable to the crisis. Yuktobania's petroleum reserves were depleted to a negligible level in 2016, and its natural gas extraction - which was expected to replace oil as the nation's main export for the next century - peaked in 2021. Having neglected its industrial infrastructure in the transition to becoming an oil exporter, Yuktobania had little heavy industry to fall back on, and mining infrastructure to take advantage of its relatively rich mineral wealth was projected to take several decades to fully develop. The most significant problem, however, came from its widely-dispersed population and consolidated agricultural resources. As shipping costs increased, food for Yutkobanian citizens in its poor arid regions became prohibitively expensive, and millions starved to death over the 2020s. Overall, a decrease in the population from approximately 750 million in 2020 to 675 million in 2030 has been blamed on the peak oil crisis and its economic repercussions, and the subsequent crisis is also seen as responsible for the re-radicalization of the Yuktobanian Communist Party and their electoral victories in 2031, directly leading to the Yuktobania Police Action in 2035.