OPEC
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Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
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| Headquarters | Vienna, Austria | |||
| Official languages | English[1] | |||
| Type | Trade block | |||
| Member states |
12
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| Leaders | ||||
| - | Secretary General | Abdallah Salem el-Badri Libya (since January 1 2007) |
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| Establishment | ||||
| - | Statute | September 10-14 1960 in effect January 1961 |
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| Area | ||||
| - | Total | 13,753,061 km2 5,310,086 sq mi |
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| Population | ||||
| - | estimate | 619,157,014 | ||
| - | Density | 45.02/km2 116.6/sq mi |
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| Currency | Indexed as USD-per-barrel | |||
| Website http://www.opec.org/ |
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The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a cartel of 12 countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The organization has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965,[2] and hosts regular meetings among the oil ministers of its Member Countries. Indonesia's membership from OPEC was voluntarily suspended recently as it became a net importer of oil. [3]
According to its statutes, one of the principal goals is the determination of the best means for safeguarding the Organization's interests, individually and collectively. It also pursues 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."[4]
OPEC's influence on the market has been negatively criticized. 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, as of March 2008, 35.6% 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.[5] 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.[6][7]
Contents |
History
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 communication among petroleum-producing nations. In September 1960, at the initiative of the Venezuelan Energy and Mines minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo and the Saudi Arabian Energy and Mines minister Abdullah al-Tariki, the governments of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met in Baghdad to discuss ways to increase the price of the crude oil produced by their respective countries. OPEC was founded in Baghdad, triggered by a 1960 law instituted by American President Dwight Eisenhower that forced quotas on Venezuelan and Persian Gulf oil imports in favor of the Canadian and Mexican oil industries. Eisenhower cited national security, land access to energy supplies, at times of war. When this led to falling prices for oil in these regions, Venezuela's president Romulo Betancourt reacted seeking an alliance with oil producing Arab nations as a preemptive strategy to protect the continuous autonomy and profitability of Venezuela's oil.
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 31, 1992[8] 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. [9] Similar concerns prompted Gabon to follow suit in January 1995 [4]. Angola joined on the first day of 2007. [10] Indicating that OPEC is not averse to further expansion, Mohammed Barkindo, OPEC's Secretary General, recently asked Sudan to join.[11] Iraq remains a member of OPEC, though Iraqi production has not been a part of any OPEC quota agreements since March 1998.
Fifteen years after leaving, Ecuador rejoined OPEC November 2007 after Rafael Correa became president January 2007. Correa has made OPEC membership a key part of oil policy since taking office.[12]
In May 2008, Indonesia announced that it would leave OPEC when its membership expired at the end of that year, having become a net importer of oil and being unable to meet its production quota. [13] A statement released by OPEC on 10 September 2008 confirmed Indonesia's withdrawal, noting that it "regretfully accepted the wish of Indonesia to suspend its full Membership in the Organization and recorded its hope that the Country would be in a position to rejoin the Organization in the not too distant future." [14]
The oil weapon
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 allies 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."[15]
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, during the Iranian Revolution, another oil crisis (1979 oil crisis) ensued.
The 1980s oil gluts
After 1980, oil prices began a six-year decline that culminated with a 46 percent price drop in 1986. This was due to reduced demand and over-production that produced a glut on the world market. This caused OPEC to lose its unity. OPEC net oil export revenues fell in the 1980s.
Responding to war and low prices
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 invasion 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. Indonesia withdrew from OPEC to protect its oil supply interests.
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]
On October 10 2008, oil traded below $85 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In response OPEC has stated that it will meet November 18 2008, a month ahead of their regularly scheduled meeting to discuss cutting production as oil experiences declining world demand. [18]
Production Disputes
The economic needs of the OPEC member states often affects the internal politics behind OPEC production quotas. Various members have pushed for reductions in production quotas to increase the price of oil and thus their own revenues. These demands conflict with Saudi Arabia's stated long-term strategy of being a partner with the world's economic powers to ensure a steady flow of oil that would support economic expansion.[19] Part of the basis for this policy is the Saudi concern that expensive oil or oil of uncertain supply will drive developed nations to conserve and develop alternative fuels. To this point, former Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani famously said in 1973: "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones."[20]
One such production dispute occurred on September 10, 2008, when the Saudis reportedly walked out of OPEC negotiating session where the cartel voted to reduce production. Although Saudi Arabian OPEC delegates officially endorsed the new quotas, they stated anonymously that they would not observe them. The New York Times quoted one such anonymous OPEC delegate as saying “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand. We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil. The policy has not changed.”[21]
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 6 Day 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. Overall, the evidence suggests that OPEC did act as a cartel, when it adopted output rationing in order to maintain price.[22]
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 Iraq's invasion, the interim government reversed this policy, and the subsequent Iraq governments stuck to the US dollar.[23] Member states Iran[24] and Venezuela[25] have undergone similar shifts from the dollar to the Euro.
Current quotas
| Country | Quota (7/1/05) | Production (1/07) | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
 Algeria |
894 | 1,360 | 1,430 |
 Angola |
1,900 | 1,700 | 1,700 |
 Ecuador |
520 | 500 | 500 |
 Iran |
4,110 | 3,700 | 3,750 |
 Iraq |
1,481 | ||
 Kuwait |
2,247 | 2,500 | 2,600 |
| Libya |
1,500 | 1,650 | 1,700 |
 Nigeria |
2,306 | 2,250 | 2,250 |
 Qatar |
726 | 810 | 850 |
 Saudi Arabia |
10,099 | 8,800 | 10,500 |
 United Arab Emirates |
2,444 | 2,500 | 2,600 |
 Venezuela |
3,225 | 2,340 | 2,450 |
| Total | 31,422 | 30,451 | 32,230 |
Using quotas to help mitigate global warming
As fossil fuel consumption produces large amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, it has been proposed that if OPEC and the IEA established the proper production quota system, global warming effects could be reduced.[27]
See also
- List of Secretaries General of OPEC
- Chart of exports and production of oil by nation
- List of oil-producing states
- APNPP, a "green" OPEC formed between 15 African countries
- Energy crisis
- 1973 energy crisis
- 1979 energy crisis
- 1980s oil glut
- Hubbert peak theory
- International Energy Agency
- Gasoline
- Manucher Mirza Farman Farmaian
- Strategic Petroleum Reserve
- Petrocurrency
- Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC)
- Price fixing
- Petrodollar Warfare
Petroleum industry commentators and further reading
- Colin J. Campbell
- Kenneth S. Deffeyes
- Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (1993)
References
- ↑ Chapter I, Article 6 of The Statute of the organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (as amended)
- ↑ A brief history of OPEC
- ↑ http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/09/10/afx5406908.html
- ↑ Chapter I, Article 2 of The Statute of the organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (as amended)
- ↑ BP plc. "British Petroleum table of world oil production". Retrieved June 18, 2007.
- ↑ Al Jazeera English - Archive - Is Opec Losing Control Over Oil Price?
- ↑ BW Online | January 20, 2003 | Is OPEC About to Lose Control of the Spigot?
- ↑ OPEC, by Benjamin Zycher: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Library of Economics and Liberty
- ↑ Ecuador Set to Leave OPEC - New York Times
- ↑ Angola to join OPEC on January 1: South Africa: News: International: Fin24
- ↑ Angola, Sudan to ask for OPEC membership Houston Chronicle
- ↑ Simon Webb and Alex Lawler (November 17, 2007). "Ecuador rejoins OPEC, bolsters producer power". Reuters UK. Retrieved on 2008-10-28.
- ↑ Indonesia to withdraw from Opec
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Quoted in Walter LaFeber, Russia, America, and the Cold War (New York, 2002), p. 292.
- ↑ http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/OPEC_Revenues/OPEC.html
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ [3]
- ↑ Speech by Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi: Saudi oil policy: stability with strength
- ↑ Washington diary: Oil addiction
- ↑ Saudis Vow to Ignore OPEC Decision to Cut Production
- ↑ http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/WP318.pdf
- ↑ Iraq: Baghdad Moves To Euro
- ↑ Iran's euro-denominated oil bourse to open in March: US Dollar Crisis on the Horizon
- ↑ Bloomberg.com: Latin America
- ↑ Quotas as reported by the United States Department of Energy
- ↑ "Climate Control: a proposal for controlling global greenhouse gas emissions" (PDF). Sustento Institute. Retrieved on 2007-12-10.
External links
- OPEC official site
- OPEC brief from the U.S. Energy Information Administration
- Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: OPEC
- OPEC Timeline by Nicolas Sarkis, from Le Monde diplomatique, May 2006
- Find Articles from Dr. Rilwanu Lukman (1999-200), Dr. Alí Rodríguez-Araque (Jan 2001 – 30 Jun 2002), and Adnan Shihab-Eldin (Kuwait), (acting for Al Sabah): (1 Jan 2005 – present)
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The petroleum industry