Exactly. What happened was geologists knew about shale oil and gas deposits in North America for years, and then finally someone figured out how to extract it e

Exactly. What happened was geologists knew about shale oil and gas deposits in North America for years, and then finally someone figured out how to extract it economically given prices in the mid-late 00s, probably because they wanted to make money. They made money, hundreds of firms copied them, and the Saudis responded to the threat of market share loss by pumping lots of oil. There was no centralized decision making in this process, just a bunch of individuals, firms, and governments reading the tea leaves of the oil market independently.