Judging from its series of consequential meetings last week in Vienna, OPEC seems to have confirmed that the rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated. The important thing to recognize is that it also has a new identity that may reshape oil geopolitics for years to come. Commentators have been writing OPEC’s obituary for years. Most recently, they did so in the wake of a pivotal November 2014 OPEC meeting, when oil prices cratered after Saudi Arabia decided against cutting production. Countless analysts , experts , and scholars mused that Riyadh’s hand had been forced by the rapid rise of shale oil in the United States; since shale output is much more responsive to oil price changes than conventional oil production, any attempt by OPEC to cut production and push up prices was expected to simply be offset by a rapid rise in U.S. output. “OPEC is now […]