Opec tells the market: we’re back

Saudi Arabia has accepted Iran’s terms for a deal. Now Russia has to keep its pledge to cut too

Houston (and other parched oil patches), we have a deal. Two months after setting the ball rolling in Algiers and eight years after it last cut output, Opec agreed here in Vienna to resume its efforts to prop up oil prices. The group announced cuts of 1.166m barrels a day, effective from the beginning of January, for six months. The deal may be renewed at the end of May. Excluding Indonesia and assuming output from Libya and Nigeria remains roughly at October’s levels, Opec’s total production will fall to 31.96m b/d. In October, used as the baseline for some but not all the members, output was 33.643m b/d. Saudi Arabia’s output will drop by 486,000 b/d to 10.058m. Iraq, the UAE and Kuwait sh