The weakness of Opec+ is evident | Financial Times

The weakness of Opec+ is evident | Financial Times:

The agreement between the oil cartel Opec and a group of non-Opec countries led by Russia to maintain the quotas they established last December for another six to nine months confirms the shift in power within the market away from the producers.

In the short term, the defensive deal agreed in Vienna is designed to prop up prices at their current levels. The cartel and its new allies, including Russia, Kazakhstan and Mexico, will continue to take some 1.2m barrels a day of potential supply off the market.

But the immediate market reaction and the further fall in prices in the following days show that the shift in income and wealth away from producers is one that even an agreement by Opec+ — led by Russia and Saudi Arabia — cannot halt.