Oil productionThe price of oil may at some very rare brief moment reflect the marginal cost of production. It always depends on the time span under consideration. Check the 50 year historical monthly oil prices on macrotrends. Other factors always intervene, geo-political, budgetary, local politics, environmental, lag times etc., particularly in the OPEC gulf states, where the marginal cost of production could be less than $10 in some cases. Oil is a political, critical commodity very susceptible to manipulation by influences unrelated to the marginal cost of production, such as political alliances, pressures or cartels.