Originally Posted by
CPPfacts
It’s not a good thing in this case. It’s indicating how bad the problem is.
If you're buying oil it might be good in the very short term. Long term, disastrous.
The problem is that the current oil price is well below the cost of production for many producers, particularly in the USA. Oil extraction from many US oilfields, particularly shale, is expensive compared to just pumping it out of the ground. This will cause many producers to simply go out of business. The producers that will be left will be those with very low costs of production-like Saudi Arabia for example.
Once demand for oil returns, and it will, there will be far fewer producers and they will keep tight control over production to keep prices high. OPEC did this in the 1970s and they will do it again. We could see $100 oil in a few years, so if you could plan your aircraft network, you would take that into account and keep the most fuel efficient aircraft.