US Frackers are the Skunks at the Putin-OPEC Garden Party

OPEC was convinced that the oil price crash in 2015 and 2016 would bankrupt swathes of the shale industry and halt the US juggernaut. This was a bizarre mistake.

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
February 23, 2018

The OPEC cartel is to forge a permanent alliance with a Russia-led bloc of producers by the end of the year, aiming to regain control of the world crude market with a super-combine of unprecedented scale and reach.

Suhail al-Mazroui, OPEC’s president, said the two groups are working on a “framework partnership” that would tie them together closely in perpetuity after their current deal to cap production  jointly expires later this year.

“We have built up enormous trust,” he told the International Petroleum Week forum being held in London now (2/20-22), an annual gathering of the world’s oil and gas elites.

Mr. al-Mazroui, who doubles as the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister, said the broad “ROPEC” alliance has exceeded the agreed cuts of 1.8m barrels a day (b/d) with a compliance rate of 107%.  This spiked to 133% in January as Saudi Arabia throttled back production in a bid to clear the global glut of crude, hoping to stabilize prices befor…