OPEC+ needed a Swat team for swift action, instead it mobilises an Army

Monday's virtual gathering of the 13 OPEC ministers broke up without agreement, the bigger OPEC+ meeting was delayed by two days and then by another two hours as the start time approached

A little over a week ago I wrote that oil producers need a mechanism allowing them to respond quickly to changes in the oil market that could be both big and fast. I’m pleased to see that’s what they’ve tried to create, even if it isn’t quite what I had in mind.

My colleague Alaric Nightingale suggested the OPEC+ alliance should assemble a small SWAT team that could take swift, tactical action. Instead, it has decided to mobilize its entire army as the rapid-response unit.

It did so at the end of another week of fractious meetings, which concluded with