MIDDLE East oil producers have launched a battle to recapture market share lost during the Iran war, setting current and former Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members on a collision course as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz gradually recovers.
Such turf battles usually send crude prices plummeting, yet consumers are unlikely to see much relief at the pump in the near term.
The Iran war, now in its eighth month, delivered the biggest shock to the global oil market in decades.
After Iran imposed a blockade on Hormuz — through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies once flowed — Gulf producers, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Iraq, were cut off from their most important export route.
