Exactly. OPEC hasn't been an effective cartel in years. In the last decade or so they've been unable to get the poorer oil producing countries to comply with the quotas they agree upon in Vienna. They have riled the markets with promises to cut back on extraction, but they never succeed.
With Iraqi extraction ramping up, it's becoming even more difficult for them to collude. Then there's the Obama administration, crippling the world's largest economy with egregious policies, thereby significantly lowering world demand. There are all sorts of things having an effect on crude prices, and right now none of them are good for the Saudis. The posters who say that printing money is having the most effect on commodity prices, including oil, are correct in my opinion.
The funny thing is I wrote a blog on the oil prices about a month ago and how demand would fall, mainly because of us and because of China’s slow down.
Sure enough it started Friday. BIG drop and still going. If I remember correctly putting oil on the commodities market was to fight OPEC and it worked. Not sure on that one, kinda before my time.