Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said that he was optimistic major oil producers could agree to cut production by November and that it wasn’t “unthinkable” that crude prices could rise another 20% this year to $60 a barrel. The minister’s words confirmed a decisive shift in policy by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries toward a return to market intervention—a role the oil cartel seemed to abandon two years ago when it refused to step in to prop up sinking prices. A production cut is meant to reorder the supply and demand landscape and push prices up during a historic market slump. “I think the role of responsible producers around the world, and Saudi Arabia considers itself to be the leading one, is to try to balance supply and demand in a very responsible way,” Mr. Falih told a conference in Istanbul this week that has become […]