When there is a major change in the supply of a commodity history doesn’t repeat.
There are a lot of advisers claiming that oil prices will revert to the mean. No one that I have heard is claiming that the price will stay low for a long time. However I disagree. The new technology of hydraulic fracturing of shale has greatly increased the US oil and gas supply over the last few years to the point that now, the US is almost independent of foreign oil. What is starting to happen all over the world is that the success of hydraulic fracturing in the US is now starting to be used world wide and discovering of new supplies of oil in shale all over the world. As these new discoveries start to mature, the supply will only continue to increase much faster than the demand will increase.
Although the current high cost of drilling and fracturing the shale in the US is not profitable at these low oil prices and will cause US drillers to back off, that is not true in many countries around the world that have much lower labor costs. Many countries that have low labor costs and buy much of their oil from oversees are now drilling and fracturing their oil shale as fast as they can with no sign of, or need to slow down. They see an opportunity to also become free of importing oil, and that is much more important that how much profit they make on their oil.
There is another reason that the price will not revert to the mean. Many of the countries that currently export oil use the income from oil to finance many internal projects that are ongoing and planned for the future. It is difficult for them to reduce their export volume without cutting back on these projects, which would increasing their unemployment, and cause an internal recession. Due to the current low prices they have internal pressure to sell MORE oil to keep up the income.