Saudi Arabia has reasserted its leadership of the oil market on Thursday after brokering its desired extension of output cuts with OPEC and non-OPEC partners through to the end of 2018. The deal – agreed after nearly nine hours of negotiations in Vienna – kept its new ally Russia onside and prevented a sell-off that many analysts had feared, according to Platts. With consensus very much in doubt entering OPEC’s closely watched meeting, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih emerged from the talks with deal in hand, pledging a firm commitment to completing the rebalancing of the market and promising to keep a close eye on his OPEC counterparts, many of whom have been lax in compliance with their quotas. That had many commentators proclaiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin – and by extension Novak – had effectively wrested control of OPEC from Saudi Arabia, without even being a member of the organization.
