This image is about right, save the fella on the right is not wearing coveralls and covered in oily, griming shit. He looks like me might have slept in the past week too; sleep for oil operators is a gross mis'conception,' at least those of us who use our own money.
The fella on the right is also missing a post that says 'price volatility caused by shale oil.' $50-60 oil is a good price for the entire worldwide oil industry and helps insure continued investment necessary to arrest depletion rates and even find a few new things now and then. The American shale oil sector, however, has found a new source of money, junk bonds, and is about to drive the price down, again.
Imagine being in a business trying to make long term budgets, or plans for your future, when you have NO control whatsoever over product prices and are essentially at the mercy of a bunch of meatheads spending borrowed capital to create oversupply.
For a large, majority of America's shale oil wells, "finding costs" are pretty much limited to interest paid on borrowed capital. Even with that in mind, the shale oil sector STILL can't make enough money to replace reserves, pay dividends to investors, and deleverage debt. All of them, even at $60, are kicking the debt can down the road AND taking on new debt.
The cartoon, by the way, was created in 1936.