The best cure for low prices are low prices. It costs way more than $48 to pull a barrel of oil out of our ground. Yet that's all the market is willing to pay at this moment. So producers will, as it makes business sense, stop pulling it out of the ground until the prices go up. It's not nefarious. It's just that in many cases, producers have to sell at a loss in order to move the product they are producing. Solution? Stop producing at a loss. Which takes supply off-line. Which restricts product available to buy. Which causes prices to up.
My caution to anyone (no one here is this short-sighted...I know that), is simple...don't make long term decisions on a short term price drop. No one saw this coming. OPEC is on their knees. They don't want to shut off their supply because buyers will find other sources (that's us...the other sources). Once a buyer has mechanisms in place to buy from us, it's hard to get them to return to an OPEC member. OPEC is hoping we blink first and shut off the some wells. If we don't, eventually they will because they have no choice. Their economies have no other sector. And eventually, they hit the skids.
I know this is elementary to some. But to others, not-so-much. So I thought I'd post it. Personally, I drive Volt so I don't much care the price of gas in winter. In summer? Between the tow vehicle and the boats, I care as much as anyone else...maybe more. For now though, I just watch from the sidelines filling my car with electrons every day and burning nothing but coal. It's fascinating to me how many people are buying big trucks and SUV's as grocery getters and child-movers because gas is "cheap now". Doh! Silly silly people.