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All your points are well taken. The lack of transparency of the fundamental data - such as the condition of major oil fields - is a further complication.

The sheer size of the oil market suggests to me that changes will be slow due to scalability issues. So even if something (whatever that something might be) is an offsetting factor, it will take time to have any notable impact.

Still, despite the challenges in coming up with conclusions based on partial data, it seems a worthwhile effort.