Opec ready to stay the course after slow progress
Prices need to fall again if the group's strategy to regain market share is to work
After the doors are shut and the Opec ministers take their seats around the horseshoe table in Vienna's Helferstorfer Strasse on 5 June, their decision should come swiftly: do nothing and keep pumping. Low prices have brought pain for Opec's producers. The group earned $730billion in net oil export revenues in 2014, down 11% on the year before, says the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and revenue could fall to $380bn this year. The slump has left some members, like Venezuela, perilously close to bankruptcy. It's been a high price to pay for its strategy to recoup market share. On the surface, though, the plan to let the market drift lower and force higher-cost rival producers offlin
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