An eight-month slump in the oil market has reached a bottom and prices will recover, Iraq’s oil minister predicted Tuesday. Oil prices have slumped more than 50% since June amid a surge in oil supply led by U.S. shale oil production and sluggish demand. Iraq and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have taken a hands-off approach to the selloff, opting to defend market share rather than cut production to bolster prices as the group had done in the past. “The price fall has no real justification,” oil minister Adel Abdul-Mehdi said in a statement published on the Iraq oil ministry’s website, adding that he expected oil demand to increase and spending cuts to hit high-cost oil projects, reducing supply in the market and helping to halt the fall in prices. The minister’s comments somewhat echo analysis by the International Energy Agency this week, which […]