Overachievers are rarely team players. But Saudi Arabia knows it must keep the disparate Opec+ team together in the face of growing competition - especially from US shale oil - or take up the burden of output cuts alone. Last December’s eleventh-hour Opec+ deal to cut production by a collective 1.2mn b/d outper- formed expectations, with 11 Opec countries subject to quotas and their 10 non-Opec allies cutting supply by 1.6mn b/d on average in January-November. Opec+ agreed on 6 December to turn their unwanted success into a new agree- ment by cutting a further 500,000 b/d from their collective output after 1 January, adding up to a total cut of 1.7mn b/d below October 2018 levels.
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