The usual suspects

Familiar geopolitical risks will linger into the coming year, but won’t much affect a well-supplied oil market till the end of 2017

Continued production losses in some of the world's big oil-producing countries and the erosion of Saudi Arabia's spare-capacity cushion will persist in 2017, but neither will provide much support for the oil price. For now, the world market remains comfortably supplied, inventories are high and Opec is still pumping hard. The big threats to oil supply in 2017 will come from repeat offenders: Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya and Iraq, where upheavals of various kinds have removed 2.4m barrels a day of oil supply from world markets - a situation that should persist for much of 2017. Saudi Arabia's spare capacity, another habitual source of comfort for edgy markets, has fallen to 1.1m b/d, according t