That appears to be the market sentiment according to Edison Research's latest Oil & Gas macro outlook.

"Significantly, geopolitical issues have been downplayed and instead the market has focused on surging production growth in North America and lacklustre demand. The market has indeed been swimming in oil," Edison said on Friday.

Ukraine government troops fighting rebels around the Donetsk airport last week or Christians being persecuted in Iraq would beg to differ on the significance of those crises, but it's all relative when oil markets face a bearish outlook in the near to medium-term, with the International Energy Agency downgrading its expectations of oil demand for this year and next.

"Given weak fundamentals and the ability of Saudi Arabia to offset outages in OPEC, the oil market for the moment at least appears with justification prepared to downplay geopolitical issues," Edison said.

"Specifically in the case of Iraq, it has become apparent post the Mosul debacle that the US has drawn a line in the sand regarding IS [Islamic State] and furthermore is now working to neutralise if not destroy the organisation.

"It seems unlikely that the major oilfields of southern Iraq or for that matter those located in the north would be allowed to fall into the hands of the IS."

Edison maintained, however, that the key geopolitical area of uncertainty regarding oil markets was arguably Ukraine.

"There is an outside chance that an escalation of the conflict between Ukraine and separatist forces supported by Russia could ultimately lead to an interruption of energy supplies, although the market is probably correct in downplaying the risk," Edison said.

OECD Europe's net imports of petroleum products in 2013 were 4.3 million barrels per day, or 44% of the total according to the International Energy Agency, and these imports can't be offset by any other source.

"The loss of all or even a significant part of existing Russian supplies would have disastrous consequences for the European economy," Edison said.

"By the same token, exports of energy are Russia's dominant source of income accounting for 70% of exports and 52% of the federal budget."

"Arguably, we are nearing the end game in Ukraine reflecting the inability of government forces to defeat the separatists and the West's lack of leverage in the region militarily.

"The solution to the crisis may involve the quasi neutrality of Ukraine vis-a-vis the EU and NATO and the establishment of a federal structure for the country in which the Russian speaking zones in the east have substantial autonomy.

"Since the ceasefire was announced on September 5, developments in Ukraine and particularly the decision to grant self-rule to the eastern provinces of Donetsk and

Luhansk have tended to support this view.

"It is, however, an open question as to when conditions in Ukraine will have stabilised to allow a lifting of sanctions on Russia."

While international light crude prices, along with the US inland benchmark WTI (West Texas Intermediate) trended higher in the first half of 2014 driven by geopolitical factors surrounding Ukraine and Iraq in the second quarter, oil then proceeded to not just dive but have crashed and burned.

In short, the US shale revolution focused around the Great Plains and Texas has grown so great that OPEC has again lost control of the market, much like in the second half of the 1980s.

"A sharp reversal took place in the third quarter with prices falling from the June peak by about 20% and 15% in the case of Brent and WTI respectively," was Edison's polite summation of proceedings since the earlier, perhaps more newsworthy regional instability around Ukraine and Iraq.

"By end September, Brent and WTI were trading at $93.2/bbl and $91.2/bbl which were equivalent to 26-month and 15-month lows respectively. In the early days of October prices continued to soften to under $US92/barrel for Brent and $89.5/bbl for WTI.

"The weakening price trend in recent months reflects a combination of plentiful supplies, growing evidence of lacklustre demand globally, rapidly waning geopolitical concerns and the strong dollar. A reflection of the weakening backdrop in recent months has been the swing from the long-time backwardation in the Brent forward curve to contango."

However, even amid North America's surge, OPEC production has remained relatively buoyant in recent months, in line with the "call" of 30MMbpd.

Though production has been running slightly below a year ago, "this was not unexpected", Edison said.

In fact, OPEC has recently flagged the possibility of cutting production target rates from 30MMbpd to 29.5MMbpd to accommodate soft demand and non-OPEC production gains.

However, Edison warned that a significant cutback might be difficult to engineer given the potential for production gains in Libya and Iraq.

"Iran at this stage is a wildcard given that negotiations are still underway with the world's key powers over its nuclear program," Edison said.

"If there is an accord Iran has indicated that it will be looking to rapidly boost production and exports. The deadline for concluding the negotiations is November 24."

As the for the global demand picture, the IEA is now looking for growth of 900,000 bpd (up 1%) in 2014 and 1.3MMbpd (up 1.3%) in 2015 which reflect downgrades of 0.15MMbpd and 0.165MMbpd respectively.

China and Europe were largely responsible for softening demand in the second and third quarters, the IEA said.

"Reflecting the sluggish world economy and structural developments [improving fuel efficiency in automotive and aviation] tending to depress usage, we believe that further demand forecast downgrades are possible for 2014 and particularly 2015," Edison added.