This year has been tumultuous for oil. From the US$27 a barrel trough we witnessed in February to the spike to US$55 after OPEC announced a labored deal to reduce production at the end of last month, it’s been a crazy ride. By all means, the OPEC deal, followed by a supplementary one with 11 external producers, was the event of the year in oil. The deals were the first concerted effort at restoring the balance between supply and demand on global markets since 2008. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm it was met with proved to be short-lived for a number of reasons, among them the historical precedence of cheating among OPEC members when it comes to cutting production, the exemption of some of the cartel’s biggest producers from the deal, and the unwillingness of some big non-OPEC producers such as Brazil to partake in the cut. It’s against this background […]