Opec refusal means oil industry's weakest will be left behind

Houston

SAUDI Arabia and its Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) allies' firm stand against cutting crude output to slow the plunge in oil prices has set the energy world on a painful course that will leave the weakest behind, from governments to US wildcatters.

A grand experiment has begun, one in which the cartel of producing nations - sometimes called the central bank of oil - is leaving the market to decide who is strongest and how to cut as much as two million barrels a day of surplus supply.

Oil patch executives including billionaire Harold Hamm have vowed to drill on, asserting they can profit well below US$70 a barrel, with output unlikely to fall for at least a year. Marginal producers in less-profitable US shale areas, as we…