HEADED FOR $40:

According to the IEA analysis, just slightly more than 4% of this year's U.S. LTO production carried a breakeven price of $80 a barrel or more. That's less than 200,000 barrels a day. Overall, around 8% of high-cost production worldwide requires Brent crude above $80 a barrel to breakeven, equal to 1.05 million barrels a day or 1.1% of global liquids production, the IEA estimates.

The IEA notes there is a smattering of other more conventional projects around the world that also carry high breakeven costs, sometimes due to big government takes. "All told, roughly 2.6 million barrels a day of world crude oil production comes from projects with a breakeven price in excess of $80 a barrel," the report said. [...]

At the same time, analysts have also noted that for many shale producers, a large chunk of production costs -- acquiring acreage, contracting wells, etc. -- have already been spent. As a result, the more important figure might be "half-cycle" production costs. which analysts at Citi last week pegged at between $37 to $45 a barrel. 

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