In my opinion its the other way round, the current prices are comparable to the ones 12 years ago, so the current oil prices have stopped the wealth transfer.
I suppose the perspective that I also missed in my top level comment is that the oil buried in the ground is a form of wealth.
So selling it cheap transfers that wealth to the people that use it. The global economy seemed functional enough at $60 oil, so the decision to keep the pumps flying when the price is below that is a little bit of a wealth transfer.
