Putin Oil In August, when OPEC floated the idea of meeting once again to discuss the possibility of a production freeze, oil prices skyrocketed, ending the bear market that had just formed. WTI and Brent subsequently jumped more than 20 percent in a few weeks, kicking of a bull market. Still, oil analysts dismissed the meeting as more bluster. After having seen OPEC try and fail to reach an agreement for more than a year, and the dynamics between OPEC members not having appreciably changed from the last time they tried to negotiate, the prospects of a deal seemed slim to nil. And right on cue, after oil prices jumped on the news that OPEC and Russia would meet on the sidelines of an energy conference in Algeria at the end of September, several representatives from OPEC nations seemed to back off from the notion of a freeze. Iraq’s […]