Saudi Arabia should give up trying to manage the global crude market and return to the pump-at-will policy it briefly adopted in 2014 under its longest serving oil minister Ali Al-Naimi. In the mercantilist world in which we now live, where decisions are based on narrow national interest, it makes no sense for the world's lowest-cost oil producer to subsidize shale and prop up other high-cost suppliers. Of course when it does, oil prices will crash just as they did in 1986 when the country finally abandoned fixed official selling prices. And then, in the aftermath, global investors will get in a flap about all things ... (full story)