Saudi-Russia oil war is a game theory masterstroke

The sell-off has hit high-cost producers while US shale can no longer be a free-rider. "It usually takes some kind of shock to get the dominant monopoly to go into cliff mode. In the late 1990s, the catalyst was the negative demand shock of the Asian financial crisis. During the most recent oil market crash, in 2014, it was the supply shock of US shale oil." Antoine Halff, writing in the Financial Times, reports.