It won't be OPEC that drives oil prices, it will be technology

The oil industry is aggressively pursuing traditional cost savings and technology

One thing OPEC can't fight is technology.

Bloomberg writes today about efforts that are making once-unprofitable oil projects profitable again. The costs of drilling and extraction have been falling and the decline has accelerated since the drop in prices.

A more old-fashioned technique that's also lowering costs is standardization. Drillers once customized everything but now the thousands of parts in operations are being standardized and that's allowed for re-use and the quick deployment of repairs.

"The oil industry has often been criticized as being behind other industries in terms of the implementation of available technology," said the analysts at JBC. "This is beginning to change."