Since 2016, as an informal leader of the 13-strong non-OPEC group, Russia has been instrumental in the pricing of oil as Saudi Arabia, leading producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Now, both find themselves at odds as to how to respond to the global economic crisis caused by the fall in petroleum demand resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. The Saudis insisted on overall cuts to be shared by OPEC and non-OPEC with a 2:1 ratio. Russia saw no need for any cuts because, in its view, earlier OPEC and non-OPEC curtailments had allowed the US shale oil industry to fill the gap. With the sharp fall in oil prices, many small-scale shale oil drillers in the United States will go bankrupt as happened in late 2015 when the Saudis flooded the market with cheap oil. Starting in 2014, aided by high oil prices and technical advances, shale […]