18.12.2014 - Why Opec is increasingly irrelevant
Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, expects the oil market ‘to stabilise itself eventually’. When the Saudis, the leaders of Opec, decided at the cartel’s recent meeting in Vienna to maintain their oil production levels, it sent a strong message to the world: the market, not Opec, should decide oil prices. As a result, oil prices dropped, falling below $60 per barrel this week. This is a big change for the world’s largest oil exporter, which has in the past attempted to manage the global oil markets by altering production levels. The Kingdom essentially decided to pursue a policy that not only preserves its market share in the long term but also heralds the coming end of Opec as a united organisation that still has a collective say in export decisions...........................................Full Article: Source
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