The decision OPEC faces at this month’s meeting isn’t just over whether to cut oil production. It’s a choice of whether the group is willing to fight to maintain the sway it has had over crude markets for decades.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, buffeted by plunging prices, could reassert control by cutting output, said Societe Generale SA, ceding more market share to U.S. shale oil producers. The alternative -- waiting to see if lower prices choke off the North American shale boom -- would usher in a “new oil order” where pricing power is handed to drillers in Texas and North Dakota, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
