I cannot fathom how Russia and OPEC decided that now was a good time to start a turf war and plunge the world into an even bigger browner stained crisis.
The timing is actually quite deliberate. Russia and OPEC can produce oil at a fraction of the price that USA and Canada can. US production has increased exponentially over the past several years, as has the available production out of Canada. OPEC and Russia have had the single goal of getting the price low enough to put North American Producers out of business. When our economies are booming our gov't can spend billions to support the oil industry . The North American economies are now instantly crippled by the necessity to spend unknown billions to keep our entire economies from collapsing. There is no cash to fully support Alberta. At today's closing prices North American producers will be forced to stop production. They have no choice. They literally just made unprecedented cuts..then today..unfathomable.
Meanwhile Russia and OPEC can sell at crazy low prices and still keep producing.