My take on the cost of oil: I don't think demand is soft, I think existing reserves and technology improvements have decreased the cost of production.
New fracking technology has driven down the cost of that production dramatically, frackers are small operators as the oil industry goes. BP and Exxon won't play as big a role in exploration as they have in the past, likely concentrate on refining. As I understand it, fracked oil is very pure. Tar sands oil (Canada) is the opposite. Between fracked oil, tar sands and production in the Gulf the US has more than enough to meet its needs. The challenge is building out pipelines to refineries and then the distribution of the product.
Because there are few pipelines through the Rockies the US actually has two oil markets.
East of the Rockies your oil is relatively inexpensive because of low distribution costs, natural gas from fracking is being flamed off. Coal will die because natural gas is so cheap. Mid-west now is your opportunity to re-industrialize.
To the west, our oil is transported by tanker so our costs are higher.
Venezuelan oil is so bad even the Chinese don't want to take it home (there is a story to go with that). They will go bankrupt.
That leaves the Gulf states and Russia as the big producers.
Iran and Saudi Arabia need to keep pumping to maintain their economies but they are at each other's throats, my take is that they are pumping like crazy - that is pushing prices down. Civil unrest is being provoked by both sides, particularly near oil fields. If that gets going Katie bar the door. Oil prices with go sky high as SE Asia nations are dependent on that resource.
Russia has Europe by the old pervertable, Europe is dependent on pipes from Russia so IMHO even if the world price of oil goes down the Russians will set the price for those customers.
