Regarding oil demand etc and especially for the US there are a...

Regarding oil demand etc and especially for the US there are a few things we need to take into account.

Firstly US Congress only this year refused the US oil industries request to allow the export of crude oil (lead by no other than COP) thus if oil did increase all the shale producers can do is supply the internal US consumption. Right now the US only imports round 230k boo per month or <10k per day (link http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbbl_m.htm ) which is not a significant amount.

Therefore if OPEC plus Russia (I include Russia as it is the most significant producer outside of OPEC) did decide to tighten production and the US shale producers turned UP their production to offset the lower non-US production there really is not that much slack in the US market to fill.

Going by the link above it would not take much of an adjustment from OPEC plus Russia to suddenly turn a world glut into a balanced supply and to maintain a price of round $75pboo, all it will take is for both SA and Russia to agree to cut production and IMO there is more than enough of pain throughout the industry now for this to happen not to mention the reduction in Capex expenditure which is really going to effect the long term oil price if this continues into 2016 as commentators are now predicting.

All its going to take is for a few hot heads (referring to Putin here) to wake up and realise that what they are doing is hurting themselves way more than anyone else!!!!! Although I am the first to admit that this malaise has gone a lot deeper than I originally thought possible so just what will happen could be interesting!!!

HKP