When Opec meets in Vienna on 22 June, it will have to decide on the future of a production deal that provided a $125bn boost in annual revenues last year. Gains are on track to be an even higher $135bn this year, MEES number-crunching suggests.
Of course revenue gains for the remainder of 2018 will hinge on the upcoming discussions. When the deal was initially struck in November 2016, uppermost among concerns were that as the market approached balance the incentive for members to cheat could grow too strong to resist (MEES, 26 May 2017). But the lean years of 2015-2016 when the group’s annual revenues dropped by more than half a trillion dollars have taken their toll: despite last year’s revenue uptick, few are in a position to boost production. (CONTINUED - 1388 WORDS)
