Liam Denning, Columnist

Saudi Arabia Just Lost a Kitten

Ecuador isn't crucial to production-cut plans, but its defection sends a bad signal.

July 18, 2017 at 4:10 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

1500394381_GettyImages-94113592 — Photographer: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

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Saudi Arabia is having problems herding cats.

The felines in this case are the countries making up the Vienna Group, which agreed to cut oil production to support prices. This strategy hasn't been terribly successful thus far, despite most of the 24 countries involved delivering on their promises, more or less. Brent crude oil is now roughly where it was before the agreement was announced in November and 10 percent below where it was when the cuts were extended in late May.