[kidd]

I don’t understand the OPEC strategy. OPEC has gotten used to $100+/bbl oil and they cannot possibly maintain these prices for very long.

When OPEC goes back to $100/bbl oil, domestic shale oil production would simply restart.

Or is this just capitalism working out the best price based on supply vs. demand, and OPEC strategies are irrelevant?

[thackney]

One idea is starving ISIS.

Saudis have reasons better than shale to let prices fall
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3225105/posts

[Zhang Fei]

I don’t understand the OPEC strategy. OPEC has gotten used to $100+/bbl oil and they cannot possibly maintain these prices for very long.

If Saudi production is a good proxy for OPEC production, the cartel isn't producing more and it isn't producing less. The reason prices are coming down is presumably that non-OPEC sources have finally upped production to the point that prices have to come down for the oil market to absorb it. It's more or less the kind of thing you get when there's a bumper crop of potatoes. Spud prices crash.