US emerges unscathed from Opec strategy

London

EIGHT months into the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (Opec) plan to hit rival oil producers, the casualties are mounting. Surprisingly, the most resilient may be the one that triggered the fight: the US.

Projections for combined daily output from Brazil, Canada, Russia, Mexico and Colombia by the end of the decade were cut by 2.8 million barrels since oil slumped last year, data from the countries and the International Energy Agency (IEA) show. In contrast, the US Energy Department increased its estimate for crude output in 2020 by more than a million barrels.

Prices fell more than 45 per cent in the past year after Opec refused to cut output, instead pressuring rival producers to eliminate a global supply glut. While the number of active US oil rigs has halved, production remains close to a three-decade high and is forecast to keep growing after a pause in …