This Could Explain One Of The Biggest Mysteries Of Cheap Oil

From:  HuffPost 

Ben Walsh Business Reporter, The Huffington Post 

 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, has confused many by not cutting production. 

 

 

The price of oil has crashed over the last year and a half. In the middle of 2014, a barrel of crude cost over $100. Now it’s worth just over $30.

Normally, such a collapse would lead OPEC to pump less oil. The idea is that less oil on the market helps keep prices up. But despite a historic fall in oil prices, the Saudi Arabian-led international oil cartel hasn’t budged: The biggest step it has taken so far is offer to freeze production at its current record levels. Production cuts are not on the table.

The big question is, why? One theory is that OPEC simply has less control over the oil market than it used to, thanks to the shale gas revolution. Another possibility is that OPEC wants oil prices to be low precisely in order to drive shale oil producers, which have higher costs, out of business.   MORE