Oil prices continue to trade at around 40pc below last year’s peak due to a global glut of supply. After a week of meetings of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in Vienna, one thing is clear: Iran and Saudi Arabia are on a collision course that could eventually break the world’s largest oil producing group apart. Faced with Saudi Arabia’s stubborn determination to keep Opec pumping at full choke, Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh has upped the stakes in this game of double bluff between the Middle East’s two dominant political forces. He has confidently stated that the Islamic Republic will pump an additional 1m barrels per day (bpd) of crude within months of nuclear sanctions being lifted by the West. The move – assuming that Iran agrees to all US demands to curb its nuclear ambitions by the deadline on June 30 – effectively fires […]