Oil prices remain under pressure even though U.

S shale production looks to a plateau, demand remains very good at more than a 1,000,000 barrels a day on OPEC members of warning about the implications of investment cuts on prices.

Oil is still a very weak market here to discuss.

What's happening is my commodities colleague David Shepherd.

David.

We've heard this week from OPEC King pings such a Saudi Arabia that the lack of investment by big oil companies at the moment is sort of setting us up for US price by Kim Future.

Yet when we look at the market, US or prices went below $40 a barrel.

Investors don't seem to be listening.

What's happening?

I mean, why is the price so weak at the moment?

Is there one factor you can you can point to or the markets somewhat divided?

But in the short term, the biggest overriding factor is that there is just far too much oil in the world.

Inventories of crude oil have ballooned in the last few months.

The IAEA, the International Energy Agency, came out last week and said that in the developed world oil inventories are close to an all time record of almost three billion barrels a day.

That's a huge amount, which would take over a month of nonstop world demand with no additional production growth just to burn through that on its order.

As a result, we're seeing pressure on the front of prices all the time, which is making this market very, very difficult to break out of the long term down.

Trent, it's been in Okay, So I mean, I think we can see that in the chart that we have here, the inventor levels.

I mean clearly that I mean, that is a really good graphic illustration of the glove on the sort of overproduction.

Their aunt.

It's interesting as well, because demands actually been quite good this year, hasn't it?

I mean, it's 1.8 million barrels a day, give or take depending which agency you talked to.

Yet we're still seeing the huge rise and invent trees.

I guess the question I have now is how much storage is actually left in the world in terms of storage.

We're not yet in tank tops at that level, whereby there's just normal room for the crude or refined products go into.

However, we are getting closer to that level.

Many people think that be able to burn through a lot of the Oilers.

Winter comes on and demand increases because of heating demand and other sources.

But there are concerns already the infrastructure of the world energy economy.

It started to be strained.

We've seen in the last few weeks number of oil tankers at sea has started to mount.

This isn't necessary.

Floating storage is such, but what you're seeing is the ports on dhe oil tanks.

It's taking longer to get the oil into port just because of sheer volume that there is in the world right now.

That's one indication that this market remains heavily oversupplied.

So could we be heading for a situation where the price has to move even lower?

I think we can show it here.

Us or price, I think sort of.

It's it's back to the sort of the low of this year, but below $40 to incentivize floating storage.

Given where tanker rates are at the moment, we're gonna have to see probably a much lower price than that on.

I noticed Goldman Sachs yesterday saying there's a possibility of on short story just filled up.

We could go to $20 a barrel.

I mean, is that Is that a real possibility?

There's always a possibility.

In the short term, the oil prices fall for further $20 a barrel, possibly know, even for Goldman Sachs themselves, that's not their core thesis.

They were just warning There is a possibility, as opposed to what they're actually predicting right now.

What we could see, however, though, is that if the front end I, the prices for immediate delivery could fall a bit further on those further Abbott for delivery, seeing six or seven months time, they may rise slightly too low.

What is known as 14 storage, which means when you put the oil onto a tanker buying it at that cheap price, selling it forward in the futures markets a higher price here and not let you capture the difference between the spread as long as the cost of hiring tankers is not too high.

And, of course, at the moment the cost of tankers has gone up because of the sheer amount of oil in the water.

Okay, well, if we move beyond the next 3 to 6 months And look at the slightly longer term outlook.

If we bring up the next chart here, we're looking at us.

Shell production is you can quite clearly see there it seems to have plateau owed on is now starting to fall S o.

It does seem as if OPEC strategy of living the taps remain open and pressuring Heikal supplies is starting to work.

And we've also seen all companies slash billions of dollars in investment this year.

So are we setting ourselves up as Mr Naimi, the Saudi or Minister, claimed this week for a spike in prices 12 year down down the line?

That's where the biggest split in the market is right now.

Yes, we've seen all this money come out, but also, while we're seeing us, she'll come off.

Which, of course, in many ways have been the poster boy for the growth of this oil globs that's coming down.

But the years of investments are 100 plus dollar oil from 2010 through 2 2014 has also built up this backlog of projects which is still going up forward on will still continue to come into production in the coming years.

That means it's not quite clear yet whether we actually going to see a shortage three or four years down the line, which, of course, trying to predict that far in advance in the oil market is anyone's game.

What we could see, however, is that people have been through this cycle before.

Oil, as was definitively shown in 2014 remains a boom and bust markets, of course.

Then, with all the investment coming out now, 56 years old, could we see a price recovery absolutely could receive sooner, Very possibly.

But at this moment in time, the market is very much split.

Right now, Laura for longer is the mantra.

But the biggest producers know Beck are warning there people don't invest.

We could see prices shoot back up in the future.

Thank you, David.

So as we head into 2016 oil finds itself in a tug of war between those who think the price will remain low for longer because of the supply glut.