Mohit Jayachandran is breathing a sigh of relief. The 30-year-old engineer with Fluor Daniel, a multinational engineering and project management company in Gurgaon, near India's capital New Delhi, says he will be having a decent end-of-year vacation this time, after a long year.

"God bless oil-producing countries," he says. "My gasoline bill for the past few months has come down enormously, helping me save a few bucks to splurge."

Brent (BNO, quote) has collapsed 40 percent this year as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed at a Nov 27 gathering not to cut output to force a slowdown in US production, which has risen to the highest level in three decades. Saudi Arabia and Iraq this month widened discounts on crude exports to their customers in Asia, bolstering speculation that group members are fighting for market share, according to a Blomberg report.

China (FXI, quote) has cut retail prices of gasoline and diesel seven times in a row since late July as international oil prices fell. In October, the country cut the retail price of gasoline by 245 yuan ($40) per metric ton and diesel by 235 yuan.

"Yes, it certainly helps, but it will be very dependent upon how much further the prices drop, where they stabilize and how long they stay there," says Fred C Beach, assistant director at the Austin Energy Institute at the University of Texas.

Oil (USO, quote) industry analysts predict that international crude prices might go as low as $50 a barrel, stabilizing at a long term price range of $75 to $85.

The price collapse has led to a surge of theories as to why, with some pointing to widely reported disagreements between members of the OPEC on annual oil production output.

On current estimates, the 12 OPEC economies account for 81 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Of this, the majority is in the Middle East, amounting to 66 percent of the OPEC total.

However, at OPEC's 166th meeting on Nov 27, at its headquarters in Vienna, the cartel decided to maintain production at 30 million barrels per day, as first agreed in 2011, despite a strong call from a few members for a cut in production to arrest the slide in global prices.

Hatem Samman, an independent economist based in Saudi Arabia, says that despite the fall in oil prices, OPEC members will not cut production. "They will leave it to the market to decide," he says. "It will benefit the people in the long run."

The growth slowdown in China, one of the world's biggest energy consumers, is also cited as a reason for the nosedive in oil prices. China's GDP grew 7.3 percent in the third quarter, its slowest pace in five years, down from 7.5 percent in the second quarter.

However, President Xi Jinping has said that China's economic risks are manageable.

"Indeed there are risks, but not that scary," Xi said during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing. "Resilience best equips the Chinese economy against risks."

Surging supply from shale fields in the United States－the highest in more than three decades－and a slowdown in oil demand in Europe are also cited as reasons.

But as oil prices continue to slide, and with no signs of an immediate recovery, it's "jingle all the way" for the common man in Asia this Christmas and New Year, with consumers footing smaller bills and being able to buy more gifts.

"The plunge in oil prices has undoubtedly helped consumers, especially those who reside in oil-importing and oil-dependent emerging countries in Asia, as the lower fuel prices will certainly contain the cost of living," says Martin Bodenstein, an associate professor of economics at the National University of Singapore.

In Singapore, prices of oil-related items, including electricity tariffs and gasoline pump prices, fell 2.1 percent in October after edging down 0.6 percent the preceding month.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Monetary Authority of Singapore said food inflation moderated to 2.8 percent from 3 percent in September, as prices of both non-cooked food items and prepared meals rose at a slower pace.

Chinese consumers are also having a pleasant time, with inflation at a near five-year low. The National Bureau of Statistics of China indicates that the consumer price index stayed at 1.6 percent year-on-year in October, the lowest since January 2010.

In India, prices of fruit and vegetables－historically linked to fuel prices for transport and agricultural machinery－have fallen. Prices of oils and fats, another inflation category, have remained unchanged for a few months now.

Despite inflation coming down in the country, from over 10 percent in early 2013 to 6.5 percent, the Reserve Bank of India is keeping interest rates on hold until the next April-June quarter.

"This is the right time to take correct policy measures and improve macro fundamentals of fiscal and current account deficits," says Arun Maira, a former member of the Planning Commission of India. "Current low oil prices will definitely give a boost to the India economy through other means."

Meanwhile, analysts have suggested that the fall in oil prices is a boon for China's monetary policymakers, because they need not worry so much about the ghost of inflation as they reduce interest rates to spur the economy.

On Nov 21, the People's Bank of China slashed benchmark interest rates for the first time in more than two years. It trimmed the benchmark lending rate by 40 basis points to 5.6 percent, while the one year deposit rate was cut by 25 basis points from 3 percent to 2.75 percent.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, a Singapore-based China economist at research consultancy Capital Economics, says that lower oil prices should invigorate economies in general, increasing government revenues.

"Much depends on how a country responds with changes," he says. "However, net importers are likely to benefit more than others, with less input costs and an increase in wages."

China, Japan, India, Singapore and South Korea are the major "energy deficit" countries in the region, according to Capital Economics, importing more oil than they export.

In the first 10 months of this year, China imported 252.6 million tons of crude oil, an increase of 9.2 percent from a year earlier, according to recent Customs data.

The oil price slump is, however, allowing China to spend less while importing more, helping the country save enormously on import bills, as the average price of crude oil imports stood at $769 per metric ton, down 2.4 percent from a year earlier.

China could save around $4.5 billion per month compared to a year ago if the crude oil price stayed at current levels for the rest of the year, predicts financial management and advisory firm Merrill Lynch.

It is said that for every $10-a-barrel fall in crude oil prices, India's annual oil import bill would come down by $16 billion to $17 billion.

"Low oil prices help countries to bring down import bills. And if the import savings are passed on to market, it will in turn keep consumer price inflation low," says Stephen Ching, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's faculty of business and economics.

In Southeast Asia, Thailand stands to gain most from falling oil prices, due to its dependence on road rather than rail transport and because of oil's high proportion in the country's energy consumption basket, says financial consultancy Morgan Stanley Investment Research.

Thailand is followed by Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, which are also net oil importers.

Morgan Stanley explained that every 10 percent fall in oil prices would reduce the oil trade deficit by 0.9 percent of GDP in Thailand, 0.3 percent in Indonesia and Singapore, and 0.2 percent in the Philippines.

"The oil price drop would also mean that Malaysia's oil trade surplus would be cut by 0.03 percent of GDP," it said.

But there are losers, too, in this swing in global oil prices. The dip is hitting oil companies severely.

PetroChina Co, the country's top oil and gas producer, posted a 6.2 percent year-on-year fall in third-quarter net profit. China National Offshore Oil Corp posted a 4.6 percent fall in revenue. The Hong Kong listed shares of CNOOC have fallen around 20 percent, while shares in PetroChina have dropped about 15 percent.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp, India's state-run petroleum explorer, reported a 10.2 percent dip in net profit for the September quarter.

However, negative impacts will be limited to oil exploration and extraction companies, a few lending banks, and to some extent governments that rely heavily on taxes from petroleum production.

"Anyway, people will have a happy year ahead," says economist Samman.

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