Well said. Curve is getting flatter and flatter. There's the interest rates kicker too, but I think you're right that the driver of price is going to continue to be politics. My Liberal Arts education tried really hard to tell me otherwise, but I believe Iran and Saudi Arabia are merely despotic states that wholly rely on (comparative) economic stability to prevent an Arab Spring that might make Egypt's look like a Gandhi protest.
As a Houstonian, I know a lot of oil and gas folks. Although they obviously had a vested interest in believing otherwise, I don't think many of them were prepared to embrace the fact that 35 was gonna be a thing when I first suggested it. I also don't think it takes a genius to see that the Saudi's are relying on the same (inverse) approach to controlling the oil economy that first brought this relic of British Imperialism to relevance in the 70's. They're gonna undercut U.S. producers until not only production but capacity takes a dive. Then it will be back to business as usual for OPEC while the U.S. shale industry takes another 5 years levering up financially to get capacity back to a point where it challenges the necessity of OPEC. It's going to be a vicious cycle that I predict may eventually bring an end to us propping up these regimes up.
This might be the first time I've ever made a prediction on this forum, let's hope this doesn't come back to make me look stupid in a decade.
