Whatever you do, don't you think for a moment that $2-a-gallon gas is here to stay.

The oil industry is working overtime to remove millions of barrels of oil from the market to counter falling oil prices.

Their goal: to create a fuel shortage of epic proportions that will push oil prices back up to $75 a barrel.

With oil hovering at $40 a barrel, they have to. Otherwise, many oil companies as we know them won't survive the slowdown.

Here's Why

The same low oil prices that make it possible for you to fill your car for half what you paid last July are making it impossible for oil companies to continue to find, develop, and maintain new sources of oil.

This is why OPEC recently agreed to record oil cuts in December, reducing production by a massive 2.2 million barrels a day to push prices back up. That's on top of the 1.5-million-barrel-per-day cut in October.

This is also why new Canadian oil projects have been canceled or delayed, as it costs $90 to produce oil from Canadian sands, and oil is selling for just $40 a barrel.

That's only half of the supply destruction that's taking place and will ultimately push oil prices back up.

Most investors don't know this, but the world is also losing 4 million barrels a day from depletion as it becomes more expensive to pump oil out of older wells. The latest numbers from OPEC show that it takes a minimum of $75 a barrel to keep the world's more expensive sources of oil from declining.

You see, unlike shutting down a manufacturing plant, you can't simply turn off an oil production facility. You have to continually service it to keep the oil flowing in the future.

What makes the whole situation worse is the fact that falling oil prices have left many OPEC nations with insufficient funds for production development as they bleed off their oil monies to stimulate their own economies.

In fact, one study I read shows that Indonesia's lack of funds will transform this OPEC member from an oil producer to a net importer.

It may not be the only one in trouble on that front.