Consumer countries had pushed for months for OPEC+ to open taps more widely to bring down prices, but the group ignored them again. The group agreed last month on a small, symbolic cut of 100,000 bpd from October, the first in more than a year. Output returned to pre-pandemic levels this year, but only on paper as some members have struggled to meet their quotas. OPEC+ began to raise production last year after the market improved. Collectively known as OPEC+, the alliance drastically slashed output by almost 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in April 2020 to reverse a massive drop in crude prices caused by Covid lockdowns. "There is a reason why Russia is ready to participate with an OPEC cut - because they are not sure whether they will find somebody to buy this oil," Patrick Pouyanne, chairman of French oil giant TotalEnergies, said at a London oil industry conference. He warned that Russian companies would "not supply oil to those countries" that introduce such a cap. Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak, who is under US sanctions and attended the OPEC+ meeting, said a price cap would have a "detrimental effect" on the global oil sector. The oil production cut could give sanctions-hit Russia a boost ahead of a European Union ban on most of its crude exports later this year and as the Group of Seven wealthy democracies mull a cap on the country's oil prices. The international benchmark, Brent North Sea crude, was up at $93.43 following Wednesday's announcement. Oil prices rise - OPEC+ decided to slash its output as oil prices fell below $90 per barrel in recent months over concerns about the global economy, after soaring to $140 in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Western allies led by the United States have tried to isolate Russia's economy, which relies heavily on energy exports, in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and top economic advisor Brian Deese said in a statement that Biden was "disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+". "It's clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today's announcement," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said aboard Air Force One. The timing is also bad for Biden's political agenda as it comes ahead of US midterm elections next month. But the decision drew a swift rebuke from US President Joe Biden, who had made a controversial trip to Saudi Arabia in July under pressure as Americans faced rising prices at fuel stations. Saudi Arabia's energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, defended the move, saying the cartel's priority was "to maintain a sustainable oil market", at a press conference following OPEC+'s first in-person meeting since March 2020. It is the biggest cut since the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, raising fears that it will turbocharge oil prices at a time when countries are already facing soaring energy-fuelled inflation. The 13-nation OPEC cartel headed by Riyadh and its 10 allies led by Moscow agreed to reduce output by two million barrels per day from November at a meeting in Vienna, the group said in a statement. Saudi Arabia, Russia and other top oil producers agreed on a major cut in production on Wednesday to boost crude prices - a move denounced by the United States as a concession to Moscow that will further hurt the global economy. But if you want that extra power, it's good to know it's there. When I buy mine (in October when Leopard drops, assuming Steve lets it live that long), I'll probably just double it to a reasonable 2GB. Still, in situations that ask for a lot of memory, having more will definitely give you a nice bonus in speed, and it looks like the mini can now hold more than ever. The reasons for that are probably technical (too technical for me, although I'm sure our talented commenters have some answers), but it seems that in some situations, extra RAM just doesn't help. But in the last two tests, the Halo test and the Xbench test, the mini actually ran faster at just 1GB (which is what it ships with) than the 3GB, and almost as fast as the 4GB. In fact, in most of the regular testing- the Photoshop test and the "Stress Test" the memory runs exactly how you'd expect: more memory means quicker processing. The performance testing they did just completely confounds me, however- in situations where lots of memory was needed (the "RAM Hog" setup), 4GB clearly beats everything else. And in fact, if you really want a Mini that flies, they'll even squeeze 4GB under the hood, even though they say the Mac Mini can't really handle that much. Reader John L kindly dropped us a tip that Other World Computing has upped their Mac mini memory upgrades up to a whopping 3GB of RAM.
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