The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

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That would be a good excuse not to cut production if it was true. It is more advantages to operations to have a frozen active layer than one that is thawing. The drilling and completion season is in the winter for that reason. As for the other problems associated with asphaltic or paraffinic oils, there are well established engineering solutions. All this dancing around doesn't change the fact that only Persian gulf producers have to be the swing producers for prices to move quickly. In the old days, SA would enforce prices by going the other way to drive oil prices down until blood runs. The fact that they no longer have the excess capacity means they are stuck.