An unruly OPEC is causing problems for Russia and Saudi Arabia

The meeting opecopecopecopecin Novemberof the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners (+) was meant to be a staid affair. Instead, the summit was first pushed back from the 26th and then moved online, revealing a fracas between the cartel’s big producers and its minnows. After acquiescing to lower output quotas at their previous meeting in June, +’s west African members were unhappy to learn that Russia and Saudi Arabia, the bloc’s de facto leaders, wanted to further curtail output. One oil minister, Diamantino Azevedo of Angola, planned to boycott the in-person meeting altogether.As went to press, + was at last due to meet online. Members were reported to be preparing modest additional cuts into 2024. This would represent the extension of a strategy in place since last October, under which they try to resist downward pressure on prices by restricting supply. Saudi Arabia and Russia are leading the way, with cuts of 1m barrels a day (b/d) and 300,000 b/d respectively; the rest of + is together contributing another 3.7m b/d in cuts. Yet the price of the Brent crude benchmark is down by around 15% since the strategy was introduced—it currently sits at $83 a barrel—and has fallen for the past five weeks.