The safe money for oil traders is betting that Venezuela’s plan to resurrect OPEC’s old price band mechanism, attempting to set a $70 floor for the battered market, will be doomed from the start. Saudi Arabia, the group’s de facto leader, has shown zero interest in returning to a strategy of supporting prices; big producers outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, namely Russia, have essentially ruled out cuts. And most analysts say attempting to set a price range is futile, or that the $70 price is unsustainably high, or both. Yet a handful of experts and observers say the proposal – articulated by former oil minister Rafael Ramirez in an interview with Reuters – may be a catalyst for moving away from OPEC’s laissez faire approach to collapsing oil prices, […]