Back in November, OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers agreed to their first production cut in eight years. Thus ended a Saudi-led experiment with free markets that had driven down crude prices to historic lows. To everyone’s surprise, shale producers had used technological advances and short start-up times to push down break-even costs, below $50 in the Permian Basin. Even the shale oil producers themselves were surprised by the speed of recovery. The OPEC-Russia production cuts had been scheduled to last a half year, and they appear to have been implemented.

Source: Forbes March 10, 2017 20:48 UTC