OPEC isn’t moving oil markets like it used to. As Saudi Arabia , the world’s largest oil exporter, has acted with more independence and crude prices stabilized, the group’s gatherings in Vienna to discuss output have lost potency. The CHART OF THE DAY shows how the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about 40 percent of the world’s oil, is meeting less frequently and having a smaller effect on prices. The impact of OPEC’s output decisions, measured by how much the price of international benchmark Brent crude moved after meetings compared with the daily average for that year, was ten times greater in 2008 than 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “OPEC meetings used to be a race for any sound-bite from oil ministers, but in such a stable price environment they’re more likely to produce a snore,” said Olivier Jakob , managing director at Petromatrix GmbH, […]