While that will certainly be stimulatory for consumers and many businesses, there are growing concerns about an energy-sector crash in the United States and political instability in many oil-producing nations.
As prices went into freefall last week markets lost their cool.
More than US$1 trillion was erased from the value of global equities during the week. Wall St had its worst week since 2011, the Shanghai Composite (up by more than 40 per cent since July) fell 5 per cent in one day on Tuesday.
We can expect more turmoil in the weeks ahead.
On the supply side Opec has said it will not cut production - a move seen as an effort to put pressure on higher-cost US production.
But while US applications for new fracking permits are now falling, the oil industry is no easy ship to turn around.
Unless Opec changes its mind any supply decrease will be slow and, with demand subdued, the IEA forecasts downward price pressure well into next year.
Hopefully the lower prices will fire up US manufacturing and consumer spending.
They'll need to because the contraction of the energy sector there will bite hard. It has been one of the biggest job creators and a star of equity markets for the past few years.
Any significant lag in the stimulatory effects of the oil slump will leave the US economy exposed to more uncertainty and instability. Not good news for fans of an orderly economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the dynamic change in fortunes for oil producers will shift the geo-political balance all over the globe.
Russia's ruble hit a record low last week, prompting more angst from British commentators concerned that growing economic instability may translate to more nationalistic sabre-rattling by Vladimir Putin.
Iran's President Rouhani was reported last week as describing the price slump as a conspiracy and "an act of treachery against the Muslim world". Venezuela is on the verge of debt default. Norway, Nigeria, Iraq - the list of countries facing economic upheaval goes on.
China is not mucking about and with typically far-sighted focus has apparently begun stockpiling on a vast scale.
Bloomberg reported last week that there were 83 supertankers headed to Chinese ports carrying an estimated 166 million barrels.
All of this adds to up to an increasingly unpredictable global economic outlook for 2015.
This is an unusual scenario in the sense that it is oil prices driving financial market instability rather than than the opposite - as was the case in 2008. The effects are complex and conflicting. It really isn't clear whether this is good news or bad.
Closer to home consumers should certainly expect further falls in pump prices in the coming weeks.
A delay in the transfer of lower commodity prices to retail prices is inevitable as petrol companies work through stock, although they do always seem to flow through faster on the way up.
Prices are falling, with 91 octane now below $2 a litre across the country and considerably lower in competitive markets such as central Auckland.
When BP dropped prices just over a week ago a spokesman pointed out that the cuts were his company's 10th in a row since early October.
But regardless the public should keep the pressure on the petrol companies.
There must be bigger cuts to come and with all the downside risk this slump is creating, New Zealand needs to make the most of the stimulatory upside.
