Many people will be pleased to hear of how the oil prices have dropped from their high in June of $112 per barrel all the way down to around $72 now, but their are serious consequences to the price falling down so low. It damages the massive investments which have been made into the oil industry, which may ultimately have an effect upon our pension funds.

Due to the high prices of oil, places where oil exploration and extraction were previously not economical were suddenly able to be exploited, and we saw massive investments into shale oil extraction throughout the USA, which is actually largely responsible for their economic recovery. Because of the drop in price, this investment is now in jeopardy; and is likely to continue to be in such a state for quite a while.

Prices of oil have dropped largely due to the influx of oil from the USA, while at the same time OPEC have been expanding their oil extraction. Whether or not this has been a purposeful effort by OPEC purely to make the USA operations impossible has not been confirmed, and their are numerous possible explanations for their actions. Only time will tell how much damage this will cause to the recent USA investments.