OPEC, along with the price of oil, remained on a slippery slope Friday. There is no price relief in sight. Energy traders were whipsawed shortly after 9 a.m. New York time when reports said the cartel would raise its production quota by 1.5 million barrels a day to 31.5 million. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries already produce that much. So this would have meant throwing in the towel on any attempt to arrest the slide in oil prices through a production cut. The actual statements by oil ministers once they emerged from their meeting two hours later didn’t go that far. One explained that they “did not consider it necessary to put numbers in the communiqué.” But that effectively said the same thing—let the market sort it out. This was a stunningly honest statement from an organization that historically has achieved success when its members […]