OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia is feeling vindicated after a strategy of allowing oil to flood the market has begun to achieve what it was aiming for. As a global oil glut pushed prices down 60 percent between June 2014 and January 2015, signs began to emerge that OPEC’s rivals, including North American producers, will have to curtail output of their expensive barrels. Two months into 2015, oil prices have recovered to around $60 per barrel from their January lows of $45 – much faster than Saudi Arabia had hoped for when it convinced fellow OPEC members in November not to cut output to defend market share against shale oil and other competing supply. In his first public comments since oil prices rebounded, veteran Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi signaled satisfaction with developments, saying he saw oil demand growing and that markets were “calm”. A day earlier, […]