Pressure on Opec from weak demand and rising supplies
But these pressures are not for the first time. Robin Mills puts the latest crisis in context
As one prominent Saudi policymaker likes to observe, Opec is like a tea bag - it works best when in hot water. With Brent prices falling below $90 per barrel for the first time in two years, the water is certainly warming up. But, as Rockefeller would have put it, some Opec producers may be happy to give their colleagues and competitors a good sweating.Opec's basket price, a more accurate reflection of the organisation's sales, is at its lowest since 2010, when prices were still staggering back from the global financial crisis. In 2008, oil prices had plunged briefly to $34/b and the group's shaken members responded with sharp production cuts that gradually reinflated the market. This year,
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