Twelve of the world’s most powerful petroleum ministers gathered around a horseshoe of tables in Vienna this week to pass judgment on the oil market. One of them sounded happier than the rest. “This is the best time for the market,” Ali al-Naimi , Saudi Arabia’s minister, told journalists before the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on June 11. A day later, U.S. and European crude prices, which have exceeded $100 a barrel for a record time, surged to multi-month highs, spurred by worsening conflict in Iraq, the group’s second-biggest producer. Libya, with 48 billion barrels of reserves, is pumping 10 percent of what it can because of unrest. Saudi Arabia is showing satisfaction with oil prices at a time when OPEC’s collective influence seems diminished. Years ago, its utterances mattered to the market […]