Gold can't sustainably go below opex without hedging.
Oil is not below opex. In fact only small wells have come offline thus far. Oil has fallen below ROI (includes capex) - but we have just come off a drilling boom and opex is sustainable for some time. Investors are the losers, not oil supply. I have written elsewhere about the production curves and infrastructure requirements of fracked reserves. Here is the latest oil growth projections from the US Govt, at current prices.
If you read the numbers from the frackers you will find opex for most oil is around $20 - $30 a barrel. The fact that the fields need a high density of wells and they have short production half lives and long tails are reasons goes some way to explain why you read $70 ROI in the media.
