Saudi has opened the flood gates and the price per barrel had plummeted. The reason is, the Saudi’s have been trying to get OPEC to scale back production to support higher prices and OPEC has not gone along with the House of Saud.
Agreeing in meetings but overselling nonetheless.
So, the Saudi’s said the hell with you people and are flooding the market to drive the price of oil down dramatically and thus try to force OPEC back in line.
It is said that the break-even point price per barrel in the USA is $30.00. The spot price for US crude after the Saudi actions is $30.32 per barrel as per several hours ago.
That said, the $30.00 per barrel US industry break-even point was the figure I read about 8 years ago. It could well be lower than that today.
So it may be cheaper for Saudis to get the product, but that's not entirely the number that's important.
In some ways, we are better positioned to tolerate the vagaries of the market then they are.
Oil is and always has been volatile. Those that forget that do so at their own risk. Oil was over $120/b in 1980 and it was over $150/b in 2008. It was about $10/b in 1986 and $11/b in 1998.