“They say they milk chickens” goes the Russian proverb. With crude prices up 50% from a year ago, energy investors would do well to take this skeptical saying to heart. A big component of the recent rally was Russia’s pledge to contribute 300,000 barrels a day of output cuts in the first half of 2017 to supplement a deal by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Russian government data peg recent crude output at 11.2 million barrels a day, forming the basis for cuts . The problem is that this puts output near a post-Soviet record and about 370,000 barrels a day higher than July. In other words, production since talks began about a coordinated output freeze has risen by more than the agreed cut to production. If ignoring the cuts wouldn’t even bring Russian output back to square one, then how credible are they? Russia’s oil minister […]