Opec bid to kill off US shale sends oil price down to 2009 low | Business | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... n-year-low

Nothing like holding the world to ransom. But we'll prop up SA as usual... or at least until they're broke and even we won't attempt contracts.

Isn't this the exact opposite of holding the world top ransom? A signal in fact that they've given up doing just that.

and it wont work - yes some of the hight indebted companies will go bust but as soon as they price goes above $50 ish a barrel new companies will come on stream as it seems that is the approximate cost of production now for the fracking industry

Driving down the price to kill off the competition. Is it just the oil and gas industry where that isn't illegal?

OPEC has for decades operated as a cartel in order to maintain price stability - that is illegal when private corporations do it. But Saudi Arabia was always the swing producer - the supplier who had spare capacity when the market required some extra barrels, but was able to mothball some of that output capacity when prices got slack. Having the only large scale swing producer inside OPEC was what made it workable. But now that there is a second swing supplier in the game, the game is off.

The new policy can no more be an illegal predatory pricing cartel than the old one. But it cannot be any more successful than the old policy because Saudi will never again be the sole swing producer.