Oil recovery too fast for its own good; crude prices testing $60 a barrel

The OPEC+ alliance of oil producers will face a big test of its cohesion in a few weeks’ time, when ministers meet to discuss the next step in their historic production deal aimed at rebalancing the world’s oil supply with recovering demand. Things have almost moved too quickly in their favour.

Recent increases in crude prices and the rapid drawing down of visible stockpiles will undoubtedly lead to calls for a more rapid raising of prod­uc­tion targets than was envisaged in December. That may well reignite tensions between the co-leaders of the group, Saudi Arabia and Russia, with the potential