OPEC is declaring victory in its efforts to rebalance supply and demand and bring the oil market back to stability—its favorite proxy buzzword for less volatile and relatively high oil prices. While OPEC is taking credit for some of the oil price rally in recent weeks, a number of various other factors have combined to push oil prices up—strong oil demand growth, weaker U.S. shale growth, falling U.S. inventories, and the return of some geopolitical risk from the Middle East with the Iraq-Kurdistan standoff and Saudi government purge. As the November 30 OPEC meeting draws closer, if oil prices remain ‘stable’ (or more or less at their current levels of WTI at nearly $57 and Brent at $63.50 as of Thursday morning) until the end of this month, the cartel and its non-OPEC allies led by Russia might not feel the urgent need to decide on an extension of […]