Crude Choices

AS YOU READ THIS, OPEC, the cartel of most of the world’s oil producers, is meeting in Vienna. No, they will not observe a moment of silence in honor of those who died at the hands of Saudi terrorists some six years ago today. Instead, they will go over some data in a show of empiricism, and then refuse the urgent request of world’s consuming countries to open the spigots so as to bring oil prices down. “You cannot convince any member to add more crude to the market,” OPEC secretary-general Abdalla el-Badri told the press. Mahammed al-Hamli, the United Arab Emirates oil minister and OPEC’s president, agrees, “I think the market is very well balanced. There is no shortage whatsoever of oil supplies.”