I can think of another reason.
Using oil as a fuel source in itself will be obsolete, when the big oil companies find out they no longer have the cojones of the world in their hands because in some lab right now there is people developing processes that will be a historical turning point for the human race.
And the Saudis know it and are afraid, they will make as much as they can any way they can before the bubble bursts.
Their answer...”Yeah but not before you run out of money.”
Your statement makes a lot of sense.
The OPEC embargo of the late '70s and early 80s ended because we were making progress. There were roughly 4500 rigs drilling and oil shale research was promising then.
Rather than raise their price, they crashed it, guaranteeing that alternative energy would not be economical and collapsing our domestic oil industry.
If they could do the same, if they credibly believed we would do something besides wring our hands, and if they have the surplus capacity, they would do the same thing again.
This time, though, they have not imposed the shortfall in marginal supply so much as demand has, and while they could raise the price through reducing production, they cannot crash it through producing significantly more.
The effect of that is that they will become less important in the market as pressure on our politicians increases to open up more areas, and huge grants are let to find and refine alternatives to make them sufficiently economical to compete.
When we (or exporting countries friendly to us) can produce enough to affect the margin, the price will come down.