Jurek:

One thing to remember about oil producing nations, they all have different political agendas and are at various stages of social developement.

Yes you're correct that they did survive on $60 dollar oil, however you didn't take into consideration that budgets are made based on future revenues. Old producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that have already built most of their infastructure can survive at lower oil prices. Iran is heavily dependant on high prices to maintain current domestic spending programs. Iraq needs high prices to rebuild etc. In fact one could argue that Middle East stability relies on high prices. Russia used oil prices to pay off it's debt and rebuild after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. In fact Russia is now rebuilding it's military and starting to project it's power hoping to regain Superpower Status..All the former Soviet satelite countries ( the ones that end with STAN) need high prices to devolope into modern States. India and China both have expanding economies and are building navies to expand their influence.

Then of course there's our friend Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who just lost an attempt to make himself Ruler for life..After nationalizing Venezuelan oil production he created huge national spending programs which he expanded when oil was north of $100.. HE NEEDS high oil prices to keep power and expand his influence in South America. In case you haven't seen the news lately for the first time in history a Russian President has visited Venezuela and the Russian and Venezuelan Navies are at this moment conducting joint Naval excercises. Russia is again expanding it's influence into the Western ( AKA U.S back yard) Hemisphere and Chavez has now become the new Castro.

There are too many varying political agendas among the oil producers for oil to remain low. Just as CLL has a break even point ,each and every country has it own different break even point to run it's economy. Saudi break even point may be $20 a barrel while Venezuelas may be $99. OIL will rise again.