Saudis face another test after battle with shale is won

London

EVEN if Saudi Arabia wins its struggle with US shale producers over market share, it will face a new billion-barrel adversary.

It won't be regional nemesis Iran, a resurgent Iraq or long-standing competitor Russia. The answer will be more prosaic: Even when overproduction ends, a stockpile surplus of more than one billion barrels built up since 2014 will remain, weighing on prices.