Collude, Obama is not competent enough, synchronicity maybe. Probably the Saudis were contemplating having a go at US oil but once they realised it was hurting the "Axis of Wackers" such as Iran, Venezuela and Isis it is more likely they just kept going. In the US oil growth is in spite of Obama, if he really wanted to do this he would OK the Keystone pipeline.

I think the price drop was due to a lack of storage space for temporarily excess oil production. When that eases the price could go the other way. One thing is more certain, namely that the total number of barrels will one day go into permanent and irreversible decline. Econ 101 says reduced supply means higher prices but maybe that doesn't apply to oil. The International Energy Agency says world liquid fuel production (including tar sands and biofuels) has a way to go yet from 98 million barrels a day to 130 mbpd or similar. Some say we'll peak at 100. It would be nice if it stayed cheap until the end. Not sure what happens then.

Why would the US collude in cutting its own throat ?
I am amazed that this article is from Oil Price .com.

The present oil price means the end of the tight oil production.
Drilling lease approvals have collapsed, as contracts run out so will
the tight oil production.
The collapse of tight oil production will reveal, the small as yet,
decline in conventional oil which peaked in 2005.

Saudi Arabia will not shed tears over the tight oil collapse, but to
have the US involved means that there is madness in the US government.

The US's "recovery" has been based on its reduction of oil imports
from about 11 million barrels a day to 8mbd.
That is a big save on import expenses. $300,000,000 a day !

Russia, Iran and Venezuela all find themselves in the cross-hairs. As the US continues to be squeezed out of Central Asia, that's where they will remain - Russia and Iran because they are key players in Central Asia, and Venezuela because she has had the temerity to challenge the Yankee overlord-ship of South America.
Syria is important mainly because she is supported by Russia and Iran, and because Israel wants her neutered.
As the US's Empire of Chaos begins to crumble, and as China emerges as a global alternative, the US tries to encircle both China and Russia via the "pivot to Asia" on the one hand and support for the Nazis in Ukraine and the jihadists in the Middle East on the other.
Shoot-from-the-hip sanctions (witness the recent move on North Korea for unsubstantiated hacking of Sony) continue to undermine the US's credibility. The sanction-led attacks on Russia and Iran have had the perverse effect of lowering the price of energy and thereby making the global emergence of China even easier.
Of course there has been collusion. The end of the petrodollar is imminent. A new global economic order is emerging, and so far no effective plan to challenge what is emerging as an historical shift has emerged. The powers that be within the Beltway are packing it. So is the House of Saud.

I just don't see any US or Saudi collusion. Just the Saudis reacting to protect their market share!
Nothing more, nothing less!
Rhrosty.

Few things more succinctly demonstrate the difference between US rhetoric and reality than their support for the corrupt autocracy that is Saudi Arabia. Ever since Kissinger negotiated the (then secret) deal in 1972 that all oil sales would be denominated in $US thereby propping up the US to this day, the two nations have been as thick as the proverbial thieves. Only the terminally naive will not accept that the September 2014 meeting referred to in the article was other than part of the geopolitical ploys that the Americans are making.

An oil price of less than $US80 per barrel renders the shale oil industry uneconomic. Several firms have already collapsed. Obama and his advisers must have calculated this effect of depressing oil prices, but clearly decided that it was a price worth paying to further squeeze the Russians. This strategy will fail. One reason is that the net price in roubles paid to the Russians is virtually unchanged, the depreciation of the rouble being offset by getting more roubles for each dollar denominated barrel of oil.

A second reason is that Russia is demanding payment for its oil from western nations to be in gold. The ramifications of this were not mentioned by the author. Neither did he (or indeed the Oz press) mention the fact that China's Foreign Minister effectively underwrote the Russian economy by guaranteeing Chinese support through the present difficulties. That is consistent with a wide range of joint infrastructure projects the two countries are undertaking, not only bilaterally, but within the context of BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian Free Trade Zone that came into effect on 1 January 2015, and other developments that the majority of the Australian public are blissfully unaware of because of the abysmal level of journalism in the msm.

In a word, no !

Read this;

http://tinyurl.com/owenscy

This is the sort of article that Arjay would write.

James O'Neill is correct. Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics says this will crash the oil derivatives and eventually the $ US.
http://usawatchdog.com/oil-derivatives-explode-in-early-2015-rob-kirby/

Wake up people the markets are all manipulated. See my link.

Oh Arjay, I keep advising you to take a Bex and have a nice lie down.
But seriously, there is one thing about the oil market, it is so big
that it is very hard to manipulate.
The major oil companies are in financial difficulties on a scale that
makes them too busy to be fiddling the market.
They want as high a price as they can get.
What would you say about companies that are selling assets to pay dividends ?
Remember Woodside ?

No it is down because the world economies are on a go slow.

However what Rob Kirby says is quite possibly true.
If the prices continue near $50 the tight oil will continue flowing and the littlies
will pay their debts out of cashflow for most of this year.
However drilling is slowing and will stop and production will then
fall and then it will hit the fan towards year end.
That is my prediction with guidance from Berman's article.

If the central banks are controlling all futures markets, there are no free markets.http://usawatchdog.com/central-banks-secretly-controlling-all-futures-prices-chris-powell/

MSM will not print any of Chris Powells findings.

Arjay,
how do the central banks stop someone refusing an offered price ?
How do central banks stop someone offering a higher price ?

Bazz Central Banks create infinite money. No one can compete with them. It is not theory,it is conspiracy fact. They rig the derivatives which in turn control the prices in the real markets. Did you not read Chris Powell's interview ?

Arjay,
Please Answer my question first.

Arjay,
how do the central banks stop someone refusing an offered price ?
How do central banks stop someone offering a higher price ?

Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 6 January 2015 7:16:00 AM

Bazz infinite money can always be the highest price offered,so would you knock back the highest price offered on your derivatives by Central Bankers? This is why the derivative market is 10 to 20 times the GDP of the planet and growing.

Not buying selling derivatives.
I am buying/selling WTI crude oil delivered at Cushing Oklahoma on 14th January.

Bass and Richard, the situation is a great deal more complex than either of you suggest. The price of oil has not dropped by about 50 percent in four months because of falling demand. The world economy has not slowed that much by a wide margin. There are other forces at work, and the Saudis both increasing supply and discounting the price is clearly evidence of manipulation. They are not doing that off their own bat. The likely link is Kerry's visit to S.A. In September.

The derivatives market is important, but not just for fixing the price of oil. More importantly are factors such as the use of derivative funding to finance shale oil production. That is a house of cards that will likely collapse in the first half of 2015.

There are other factors, including a massive shift to gas in the Eurasian countries, and major investments in alternative sources such as solar, wind and tide. The switch to the he latter three for household use in the UK and Europe is nothing short of astonishing.

You won't read about most of this in the Oz press because it doesn't fit their preferred world view. Such myopia and stupidity is a major reason why Australia is heading for a hard landing this year.

Actually James the demand has fallen off. China is buying less.
They have filled their storage capacity when the price started falling.
Japan has gone into recession as has Germany.
All this coincided with the peak in US production of tight oil.
I am sure that OPEC will only be too happy to see the tight oil producers in trouble.
You said:That is a house of cards that will likely collapse in the first half of 2015.
Yes I agree but the concensus seems to be that the companies will use
cash flow to make their payments. Those opinions put the collapse back
to end of 2015. The collapse in the numbers of drilling lease approvals
is signalling a collapse in tight oil production from mid to end 2015 onwards.

As a lot of contracts have already been paid, drilling and completion
of wells will continue for some time yet. Production of tight oil is
not likely to cease till about two years time, and decline will be
obvious from sometime this year.
Of course if buyers start seeing the decline and panic, it might well
push the price back up. I call it the Deffreyes effect.

Anyway it will be interesting to watch. May you live in interesting times !

Bazz, you may find the following article of particular interest from an always interesting source:

Mike Whitney "Oil Price Blowback". It ca be found at Counterpunch and also global research.ca on 6 January 2015.

Off the topic but things are really hotting up.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/is-this-a-missing-puzzle-piece-to-europes-gold-repatriation/#more-49696

Since when do bankers have to power to steal your deposits if you don't vote the right way ?
"Goldman Sachs is already threatening that if Greece fails to to vote “the right way”, that a Cyprus-style bail in or bank holiday could resume."

Note also the Netherlands repatriated over 100 tonnes of gold and is now considering re-establishing their own currency probably gold backed as a foil against banker money printing.

Arjay said:
Since when do bankers have to power to steal your deposits if you don't vote the right way ?

Since Wayne Swan signed us up to the G20 Financial Stability Board in St Petersburg in 2013.

You are fixated on gold, aren't you Arjay?

>>Note also the Netherlands repatriated over 100 tonnes of gold and is now considering re-establishing their own currency probably gold backed as a foil against banker money printing.<<

At current prices, this would be worth just under $5bn

The GDP of the Netherlands is around $800bn. How much more gold would they need, do you think, to constitute a "foil" against printed money?

But then again, simple arithmetic has never been your strong point, has it.

And this is just... well, dumb.

>>"Goldman Sachs is already threatening that if Greece fails to to vote “the right way”, that a Cyprus-style bail in or bank holiday could resume."<<

Somebody owes you money. They unilaterally decide not to pay you back (i.e., they "vote the wrong way"). You can either shrug your shoulders and walk away, or you can ask them to "vote the right way" instead.

Greece: deserving charity or economic basket-case?