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ChristianKl comments on Open thread, Jan. 18 - Jan. 24, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: MrMind 18 January 2016 09:42AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 20 January 2016 02:26:24PM 0 points [-]

Any important dynamics I'm missing?

Saudi Arabia flooded the market in order to reduce the price, in order to combat the benefit to Iran of the raising of sanctions.

Comment author: ChristianKl 21 January 2016 10:19:41AM 3 points [-]

Saudi Arabia flooded the market

Their oil production didn't rise that much. They didn't really flood the market. They mainly decided not to cut their production.

Comment author: _rpd 21 January 2016 06:25:10PM 1 point [-]

They mainly decided not to cut their production.

And there is a good reason for this decision. Saudi Arabia tried cutting production in the '80s to lift prices, and it was disastrous for them. Here's a blog post with nice graphs showing what happened ...

Understanding Saudi Oil Policy: The Lessons of ‘79