Scouring the press and internet, SLL has been unable to find a single volunteer to cut oil output in order to reduce supply on the market and presumably raise prices. Today in the Wall Street Journal:
In the escalating war of attrition among top oil-producing nations, Canada’s biggest oil-sands mines have a message for the market: Don’t look to us to cut production.
The Wall Street Journal, “As Oil Slips Below $50, Canada Digs In For Long Haul,” 1/13/15
It turns out that Canada’s tar sands mines, while requiring a large upfront investment, can run up to thirty years (unlike fracking wells, which have useful lives of 3 to 5 years), often at a marginal cost of under $35 a barrel. Canada stands in a line of defiant non-volunteers, including US frackers, OPEC nations, Russia, North Sea drillers, and seemingly every other oil producer on the planet. Which means that the phrase “war of attrition” may prove to be an apt description. Those predicting a quick rebound in oil prices may be demonstrating the same prognosticatory acumen as those seers who predicted quick ends to the Hundred Years War, the Civil War, WWI, the Korean War, and Vietnam.
