Oil price: have the production cuts placed OPEC+ under severe strain?
Oil prices in 2023 With the oil price rally that we saw on Monday being dubbed as one of the shortest of its kind, Saudi Arabia, the largest crude oil exporter in the world, has been left reeling from yet another shock from the unpredictable behaviour of the commodity markets. As of 13:00 GMT on Wednesday, the prices of WTI and Brent stood at $72.48 and $77.01 respectively. The Kingdom did turn towards the most rudimental pillar of economics out of desperation to shore up the dwindling oil prices - demand and supply; it hoped that by cutting down on the latter, it would increase the former and thereby, of course, the prices - and then its revenues in that order. With that hope, Saudi Arabia announced a voluntary production cut of over 1 million barrels at an unusually contentious OPEC+ meeting on Sunday. The de facto leader of the OPEC+, Saudi Arabia, always had a messianic presence in the organization since its inception in 1960. In its heyday, for instance, Sheikh Yamani, the f
