London/Moscow — Saudi Oil Minister Khalid al-Falih emerged from the Opec meeting room on Saturday evening having endured months of secret petro-diplomacy, late-night phone calls and, a few times, disagreements that almost saw talks collapse. But he was still smiling. Determined to end a two-year oil market slump, Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak had just brokered the first global petroleum-cuts deal in 15 years. It involved about 60% of the world’s oil production, from tiny Brunei and Equatorial Guinea to Opec giants Iran and Iraq. The Saudi minister was not done yet. Taking his place at the post-meeting press conference at Opec’s headquarters in Vienna, Falih showed he was deadly serious about finally fixing the global oil market. First, he was willing to cut the kingdom’s production even deeper than already promised. Second, Riyadh and Moscow were setting aside their historic rivalry as energy suppliers and the toxic politics of Syria to reassert their authority o...
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