No More 10 Minute Breaks: Here’s What Oil and Gas’s Ugly 2015 Did to Business Investment

: Pipe used to pump oil from a well rusts in an Illinois farmer’s field in January 2015, when lower oil prices were already starting to slow U.S. drilling operations.; SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

In the final quarter of 2014, business investment related to oil, gas and other mining hit an all-time high. One year later, that’s dropped by more than half.

It’s the second-biggest yearlong drop in inflation-adjusted investment seen by any of the major categories in more than 50 years. (Which is how long we’ve had comparable data.) Even by standards set by previous swings in the relatively small, volatile mining and gas sector, this one’s a humdinger.

Here’s what it’s meant for U.S. business investment, in four charts.

The Commerce Department data includes investment in all of the types of structures, equipment and software that produce goods and services, and is thus a barometer of firms’ outlook as well as a measure of their spending.

That barometer has lagged behind the rates seen in previous recoveries, but much of its recent weakness can be blamed on the historic drop in mining and petroleum. From the final quarter of 2014 to the final quarter of 2015, overall business investment grew an anemic 1.6%. But when you exclude the disastrous decline in mining and petroleum, that number leaps to 5.1%.

The disparity is even sharper when you focus on investment in structures, which fell 3.6% over the same period. Without mining and petroleum, it actually grew 16.2%, buoyed by investment in manufacturing and commercial structures, as well as those devoted to health care.

Mining and petroleum is one of the smallest categories of business investment, especially after that brutal four-quarter stretch lopped off half its size, but it has still caused some of the biggest swings in the distribution of business investment in the modern era.

The other major culprits are the well-documented rise of investment in intellectual-property categories such as software and research and development, and investment in transportation equipment.

Transportation equipment includes consumer vehicles, but also volatile big-ticket items such as aircraft and ships and boats, as well as freight and passenger rail equipment and commercial trucks. It’s sensitive to larger domestic and global trends and is prone to dramatic peaks and troughs.

Not unlike—as we’ve seen—oil and gas.