5 ms·

Sorry but that's nonsense. It's a well known and indeed publically admitted strategy by the Saudi's to drive US shale producers out of business. Google "saudia

• Scarbutt 11y ago
  Come on, are all those US shale producers really that dumb? they knew that if they started flooding the market they just wouldn't be able to compete, the U.S doesn't care much about all those small shale producers when it has bigger fish to fry.
  • ghshephard 11y ago
    "Small Shale Producers?" We're talking about 49% of total US crude oil production. http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=847&t=6 http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=847&t=6
    • Scarbutt 11y ago
      "Small Shale Producers" are the ones that go out of business, of course, the big ones can hold up.
      • stuaxo 11y ago
        The small ones aren't the ones with any political clout.
      • stuaxo 11y ago
        The small ones aren't the ones with any political clout.
• wehadfun 11y ago
  You can google "Russia united stated oil price" and find authoritative hits supporting the other argument.
  • api 11y ago
    Whether intentional or not, Russia's economy is something like 40% oil and gas so the effect was certainly severe.
• Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Why not both? Gives a better reason for the Saudi's to go along with the plan. They help the US political side and get paid in political good will and getting to damage the US competitors.
  • rancur 11y ago
    because we don't care that much about Russia. This isn't the 80's. OPEC got greedy, that created room for shale, and Russia got hurt.
    • elektromekatron 11y ago
      Hello, there's a fairly warm little proxy war going down right now in Ukraine and an increase in Russian forces in Syria. The 80's were the nice hopeful bit.
      • rancur 11y ago
        yes, those were the days when Russia could at least hope they would win a war with us
• elektromekatron 11y ago
  From my understanding the dump was started from financial companies that had loads of oil sitting around in tankers and the Saudis then followed and met the price, but didn't set it.
• ckozlowski 11y ago
  A bit of both. I wouldn't characterize as being quite so malicious, but it's business for sure. The Saudi's need to maintain market share, even if they are selling it cheaper. They're banking on the price going back up, and if it does and the world has switched to US suppliers, then they're out even more. But there's another country they're looking to disrupt, one who's primary source of income is through oil sales due to sanctions. Their biggest enemy. Iran.
• Shivetya 11y ago
  Figure it this way, Obama killed two birds with one stone.