OPEC Finally Gets Together

Tough Saudi Arabian tactics hold down the price of crude

By all appearances, it was like any other meeting of the 13 nations that make up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The usual parade of Mercedes-Benz limousines rolled up outside the swank Inter-continental Hotel in Geneva, where they were met by a cordon of gray leather-jacketed Swiss police and platoons of reporters and photographers. Inside, the oil ministers lived like the modern-day kings they have become. They dined on sumptuous meals that included filet de truite fumée, poussin de Bresse aux morilles and coeur de Charolais róti aux herbes.

But the outcome...

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