From what i've read, Yappy is on the money. Fracking has brought an extra resource into the market so there are 2 things at play... 1) supply has increased and 2) a slightly more sinister one... the oil companies don't want to lose market share so they will do whatever they can to retain that share - i.e dropping the price of oil just enough so that fracking actually becomes more expensive compared to oil. Whether they reduce price by increasing production or dropping profit margin, i'm not sure, maybe both. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I have a feeling that the oil companies plan to run the fracking companies into bankruptcy so they can buy them up nice and cheap and own them, controlling future supply and demand by ruling out the competition.
Not thought about the whole Russian angle either - that could be a bonus in there too. Perhaps it's been a big game of chess - maybe this has been a long term plan to bankrupt Russia by the West. Could have started at government level and everyone has played their part. The value of the Ruble has dropped 40% and i read this morning that GM and a couple of other manufacturers have decided to stop selling to Russia until the value goes back up. Funnily, ladies of the nights who work at docks and import / export areas have hiked their prices as foreign money meant transporters could get more bang for their buck... literally. I wonder if the plan is for Russia to get desperate enough to have to sell some of it's oil fields to places like Shell etc. meaning that the West can start to control business over there. Economic / Power chess? Get your foil hats on
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