Whether you call it an exemption or a special dispensation, Iran, Libya, and Venezuela have all been spared the pain of cutting production under the newest OPEC agreement forged today with the help of non-OPEC Russia. The real reasons behind the exemptions may never be known, but one thing is for sure: Iran, Libya, and Venezuela have all seen hard times in 2018, and are likely to see more hard times next year. The official line is that Iran and Venezuela were both exempted because they are still under U.S. sanctions—Iran over the nuclear deal and Venezuela over the destruction of democracy and human rights violations. To then ask them to deliberately cut production would be a big ask. Libya has been given a pass due to its chronic production outages. Nigeria, though it too has been rocked with instability in its oil industry, was not granted an exemption […]