It would appear that the strategy behind all of this is to force Russia and Iran to their knees to the negotiating table as oil accounts for 70% of their GDP respectively. This will no doubt hurt Russia particularly as the ruble as lost almost 40% of value in the past few months and trade sanctions are starting to bite. It is estimated that with every US$10 drop in a barrel of oil adds as much as .25% growth to GDP for countries like Australia. So its a winner for consumers and industry no doubt. The question is how long will the Saudi's be willing to continue to undercut their product so that the US can achieve its fundamental goals.

Thanks to the failure of Obama and Green opposition to Gas in the US, the crash in the cost of energy is effectively dealing with the failure of Obama to deal with Putin, Iran and other sundry murderers.

This should add a big upside to growth in Asia and even Africa which will save even more lives and make those lives worth having. Green opposition to growth is merely a murderous attack on the poor by rich Poseurs.

Many years ago Kenneth Deffeyes in his book Beyond Oil predicted wide
fluctuation in oil prices around the time of peak oil.
He is a geologist and oil field engineer with Shell laborities and is now a professor at Princton University.
His predictions are uncannily accurate.

A recent article might be off interest to readers here.
Note in the article there has been a 40% fall in drilling permits for
tight shale oil from October to November !

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-12-05/oil-and-the-global-slowdown

My guess, about the middle of next year oil prices will rise again.