In more promising analysis ahead of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting this Thursday, where production cuts will be discussed to address the falling oil price.

GCA said that while it was tempting to see further price inflation, the more recent decline reflects "transformational changes" that mean we'll never see the likes of $US145 per barrel again.

"Due to rapid demand growth from developing industrial economies such as China and a plethora of geopolitical disturbances there has been a five-fold increase in oil prices since 2000. Both factors continue to weigh on markets and it is tempting to assume that further price inflation in the medium to long term is inevitable," GCA director Barry Aling said.

"There is growing evidence that the more recent decline in prices reflects transformational changes in the pattern of global energy supply and demand which may mean that the price of $145.61, achieved in July 2008, proves to be a watershed high point for a commodity that so dominated global economic development in the 20th century."

Even so, there's only so far you can go.

BRG Brokerage president Jeff Grossman told CNBC on Monday that while there was only a small chance of a big price cut, the OPEC cartel would likely announce it will have discussed reducing production to stem the tide of lower prices and put a bottom on the market.

"Even with some serious tempering of weather, the market could possibly go to maybe $72/bbl in the next four to six weeks," Grossman said, but ruled out it could go as low as $60/bbl.

Aling's latest GCA report, produced last week, said that since the first oil shock of the 1970s the global economy has succeeded in reducing relative oil dependency through a combination of advances in areas such as engine technology and the substitution of coal, gas and renewable energy sources for oil in key sectors including power generation.

This process appears likely to accelerate in the coming decades as the transport sector in particular adapts to "greener" alternatives such as bio-fuels and gas-fuelled or electric vehicles.

However, the search for new oil reserves has continued to expand with major offshore discoveries in Brazil and elsewhere coinciding with a significant expansion in OPEC capacity, notably from Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The "game-changer" however, has been the dramatic growth in the development of unconventional resources from North American tight oil formations, which have added some 5 million barrels per day to global output in just six years.

As a result, despite a significant reduction in Libyan production resulting from its recent political upheaval, oil prices have softened by nearly 30% in 2014 as markets adjust to the changing dynamics of supply and demand.

"Whereas in the past, a few OPEC countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have been prepared to act as swing producers at times of excess supply, the scale of global capacity, coupled with the increasing budgetary pressures of all OPEC members, may herald a new era in which pricing power shifts decisively to buyers rather than sellers," Aling said.

"In such a scenario, and even with oil prices at around $80/bbl, the economic imperative to maximise oil production will take priority and render any accommodation or ‘pain-sharing' among producers much less likely than in the past.

"These are the ingredients of a price war and the presence of significant excess capacity could presage a prolonged period of sub-$100 oil prices."