OPEC

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The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a large group of countries[1][2] made up of Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Ecuador (which rejoined OPEC in November 2007). The Vienna-based organization has maintained its headquarters there since 1965, hosting regular meetings between the oil ministers of its member states.

The principal aim of the organization, according to its Statute, is the determination of the best means for safeguarding their interests, individually and collectively; devising ways and means of ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations; giving due regard at all times to the interests of the producing nations and to the necessity of securing a steady income to the producing countries; an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations, and a fair return on their capital to those investing in the petroleum industry."[3]

OPEC's influence on the the market has been called into question. Several members of OPEC alarmed the world and triggered high inflation across both the developing and developed world when they used oil embargoes in the 1973 oil crisis. OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has diminished somewhat since then, due to the subsequent discovery and development of large oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, the opening up of Russia, and market modernization. OPEC nations still account for two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, and, in 2005, 41.7% of the world's oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market. The next largest group of producers, members of the OECD and the Post-Soviet states produced only 23.8% and 14.8%, respectively, of the world's total oil production.[4] As early as 2003, concerns that OPEC members had little excess pumping capacity sparked speculation that their influence on crude oil prices would begin to slip.[5][6]

Contents

[edit] Membership

Image:Opec Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries countries.PNG
OPEC countries      Current member states      Former member states

The Organization now has thirteen member states. They are listed below with their affiliation dates. Note that although the effective official language of a 7-nation majority of OPEC member-states is Arabic, OPEC's official language is English. Only one member nation (Nigeria) has English as an official language. OPEC started out with 5 founding countries, but has since then added 9.

Africa
Middle East
South America
Southeast Asia
Former Members
Prospective Members

[edit] History

Image:OPEC01.jpg
OPEC headquarters in Vienna

Venezuela was the first country to move towards the establishment of OPEC by approaching Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 1949, suggesting that they exchange views and explore avenues for regular and closer communications between them. In September 1960, the governments of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met in Baghdad to discuss the reduction in price of crude oil produced by their respective countries. As a result, OPEC was founded to unify and coordinate members' petroleum policies. Original OPEC members include Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Between 1960 and 1975, the organization expanded to include Qatar (1961), Indonesia (1962), Libya (1962), the United Arab Emirates (1967), Algeria (1969), and Nigeria (1971). Ecuador and Gabon were members of OPEC, but Ecuador withdrew on December 31st, 1992[11] because they were unwilling or unable to pay a $2 million membership fee and felt that they needed to produce more oil than they were allowed to under the OPEC quota. [12] Similar concerns prompted Gabon to follow suit in January 1995 [2]. Angola joined on the first day of 2007. [13]) Indonesia is reconsidering its membership having become a net importer and being unable to meet its production quota. The United States was a member during its formal occupation of Iraq via the Coalition Provisional Authority.[14] Indicating that OPEC is not averse to further expansion, Mohammed Barkindo, OPEC's Secretary General, recently asked Sudan to join.[15] Iraq remains a member of OPEC, though Iraqi production has not been a part of any OPEC quota agreements since March 1998.

[edit] The oil weapon

Main article: 1973 oil crisis

The persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict finally triggered a response that transformed OPEC into a formidable political force. After the Six Day War of 1967, the Arab members of OPEC formed a separate, overlapping group, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, for the purpose of centering policy and exerting pressure on the West over its support of Israel. Egypt and Syria, though not major oil-exporting countries, joined the latter grouping to help articulate its objectives. Later, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 galvanized Arab opinion. Furious at the emergency re-supply effort that had enabled Israel to withstand Egyptian and Syrian forces, the Arab world imposed the 1973 oil embargo against the United States and Western Europe. In the 1970s, the great Western oil conglomerates suddenly faced a unified block of producers.

This Arab-Israeli conflict triggered a crisis already in the making. The West could not continue to increase its energy use 5% annually, pay low oil prices, yet sell inflation-priced goods to the petroleum producers in the Third World. This was stressed by the Shah of Iran, whose nation was the world's second-largest exporter of oil, and one of the closest ally of the United States in the Middle East at the time. "Of course [the world price of oil] is going to rise," the Shah told the New York Times in 1973. "Certainly! And how...; You [Western nations] increased the price of wheat you sell us by 300%, and the same for sugar and cement...; You buy our crude oil and sell it back to us, refined as petrochemicals, at a hundred times the price you've paid to us...; It's only fair that, from now on, you should pay more for oil. Let's say 10 times more."[16]

The threat and use of embargo as a weapon, however, triggered a decline in OPEC's power. Western nations developed closer ties to the Soviet Union and rapidly built up their offshore drilling in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, greatly lessening the potential impact of future price shocks induced by OPEC. The effect was not immediate, however. When the Shah of Iran fell in 1979, another oil crisis (1979 oil crisis) ensued. This was followed by the 1980's Oil Glut.

[edit] Responding to war and low prices

Main articles: Oil price increase of 1990 and Oil price increases of 2004-2008

Leading up to the 1990-91 Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein advocated that OPEC push world oil prices up, thereby helping Iraq, and other member states, service debts. But the division of OPEC countries occasioned by the Iraq-Iran War and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait marked a low point in the cohesion of OPEC. Once supply disruption fears that accompanied these conflicts dissipated, oil prices began to slide dramatically.

After oil prices slumped at around $10 a barrel in the late 1990s, concerted diplomacy, sometimes attributed to Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez, achieved a coordinated scaling back of oil production beginning in 1998. In 2000, Chávez hosted the first summit of heads of state of OPEC in 25 years. The next year, however, the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation prompted a surge in oil prices to levels far higher than those targeted by OPEC during the preceding period.

On November 19, 2007, global oil prices reacted strongly as OPEC members spoke openly about potentially converting their cash reserves to the euro and away from the US dollar. [17]

[edit] Economics

OPEC decisions have had considerable influence on international oil prices. For example, in the 1973 energy crisis OPEC refused to ship oil to western countries that had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War or October War, which they fought against Egypt and Syria. This refusal caused a fourfold increase in the price of oil, which lasted five months, starting on October 17, 1973, and ending on March 18, 1974. OPEC nations then agreed, on January 7, 1975, to raise crude oil prices by 10%. At that time, OPEC nations — including many who had recently nationalized their oil industries — joined the call for a new international economic order to be initiated by coalitions of primary producers. Concluding the First OPEC Summit in Algiers they called for stable and just commodity prices, an international food and agriculture program, technology transfer from North to South, and the democratization of the economic system.

Since currently worldwide oil sales are denominated in U.S. dollars, changes in the value of the dollar against other world currencies affect OPEC's decisions on how much oil to produce. For example, when the dollar falls relative to the other currencies, OPEC-member states receive smaller revenues in other currencies for their oil, causing substantial cuts in their purchasing power. After the introduction of the euro, pre-invasion Iraq decided it wanted to be paid for its oil in euros instead of US dollars causing OPEC to consider changing its oil exchange currency to euros, although after its conquest, the interim government imposed by the Bush administration reversed this policy, and the subsequent Iraq governments stuck to the US dollar.[18] Member states Iran[19] and Venezuela[20] have undergone similar shifts from the dollar to the euro.

[edit] Current quotas

OPEC Quotas and Production in thousands of barrels per day [21]
CountryQuota (7/1/05)Production (1/07)Capacity
Algeria 894 1,3601,430
Angola 1,900 1,7001,700
Ecuador 520500 500
Indonesia1,451860 860
Iran 4,1103,7003,750
Iraq 1,481
Kuwait 2,2472,5002,600
Libya 1,5001,6501,700
Nigeria 2,3062,2502,250
Qatar 726 810 850
Saudi Arabia10,0998,80010,500
United Arab Emirates2,4442,5002,600
Venezuela3,2232,3402,450
Total31,42030,45132,230

[edit] Mitigation of Global Warming

As there is direct relationship between fossil fuel production and atmospheric CO2 emissions, it has been proposed[22] that OPEC base their quotas on world carbon carrying capacity.

[edit] See also

Energy Portal

[edit] Petroleum industry writers/commentators

[edit] Articles from the Secretary Generals of OPEC

[edit] Books covering aspects of the subject

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/689609.stm
  2. ^ http://www.econlib.org/library/enc/OPEC.html
  3. ^ Chapter I, Article 2 of The Statute of the organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (as amended)
  4. ^ BP plc. "British Petroleum table of world oil production". Retrieved June 18, 2007.
  5. ^ http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=6664
  6. ^ http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_03/b3816074.htm
  7. ^ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/24/content_6931568.htm
  8. ^ http://www.kommersant.com/p726525/
  9. ^ http://www.kommersant.com/p726525/
  10. ^ http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071116/opec_brazil.html?.v=1
  11. ^ http://www.econlib.org/library/enc/OPEC.html
  12. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE4DF1F3AF93BA2575AC0A964958260
  13. ^ http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/companies/display_article.aspx?Nav=ns&lvl2=comp&ArticleID=1518-1783_2045086
  14. ^ Noah, Timothy (2007-07-10). Go NOPEC! Congress takes on the biggest, baddest cartel of all. Slate. Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
  15. ^ Angola, Sudan to ask for OPEC membership Houston Chronicle
  16. ^ Quoted in Walter LaFeber, Russia, America, and the Cold War (New York, 2002), p. 292.
  17. ^ [1]
  18. ^ Iraq: Baghdad Moves To Euro
  19. ^ http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CLA20060210&articleId=1937
  20. ^ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aGBuWpZJ9cPI
  21. ^ Quotas as reported by the United States Department of Energy
  22. ^ Climate Control: a proposal for controlling global greenhouse gas emissions (PDF). Sustento Institute. Retrieved on 2007-12-10.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Algeria • Angola • Ecuador • Indonesia • Iran • Iraq • Kuwait • Libya • Nigeria • Qatar • Saudi Arabia • United Arab Emirates • Venezuela

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