Who will be left standing at the end of the oil cold war?

THIS is a financial cold war - nothing more, nothing less.

While there are billions of reasons to cut output, and every major producing country is reeling from the loss of revenues, some are weathering the current bust better than others, but the devil is in the details, and the details contain tonnes of variables.

Production cost and breakeven figures that analysts enjoy bandying can trap you in a bubble of black-and-white mathematics that is a few brush-strokes shy of a full picture.