The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Companies (Opec) may have no appetite to cut oil production deeper when it meets next month, but flaring political crises across the group are once again threatening supply. Unrest erupted in Iraq and Iran this month – two of the Middle East’s biggest producers – as people took to the streets protesting financial hardship and bad governance. That’s adding to the range of supply threats already afflicting the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, from economic collapse in Venezuela and simmering discontent in Algeria to the recent missile attack on Saudi Arabia.
