They refused to cut production which resulted in oil prices collapsing. It wasn’t but a few months ago that Brent Crude was priced at $109.
If you’ve been following Prince Alwaleed’s comments in the financial media for the past few years, you would know that he’s angry and upset about the emerging US oil production that has seen WTI fall from $95 to $55 and flood the US Market with domestic production. At one point Alwaleed said that US Fracking posed a fatal threat to the Saudi Kingdom.
You can take it to the bank that the Saudis and their OPEC followers are going to pull out all stops to drive the emerging US domestic oil production out of business.
It costs on average $35 to produce oil in the US; that’s the average break-even price. It costs the Saudis far less. They have the competitive advantage. We can level the playing field and save American jobs and industry by putting a price floor on imports so that domestic producers won’t be put out of business in a price war waged by the Saudis. $35 oil is still great for Americans and still allows the Saudis to sell into US oil markets.
It wouldn't work, and the industry isn't asking for it...why are you ignoring this?
The industry will be fine, this is nothing new...and US production will continue to grow.
OPEC will not cut production...when countries such as Iran and Venezuela talk about production cuts, they mean the Saudis. I suspect the Saudis would have to cut 3MB/D to affect the market, and that would be temporary, at best...non-OPEC production would soon replace it. That's a third of their production. What then?
They recognize it's in their best interests to keep pumping the oil.