OPEC, “Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries” is an intergovernmental organization of 15 nations, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
The stated mission of the organization is to “coordinate and unify the petroleum polices of its member countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets, in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers, and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry.”
The Headquarter of the organization is in Vienna, Austria since 1965, and Saudi Arabia is the de-facto leader.
The current OPEC members in participation order are the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, Qatar, Libya, Ecuador, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, Guinea and Republic of Congo.
The total oil reserves of the OPEC countries constitutes 82 percent of the world known reserve. And they make 44 percent of the world’s total oil production.
When calculated with the numbers of known reserves and today’s production amount; the word will run out of oil in 56 years.
The largest oil reserve is in Venezuela, and the largest amount of oil is produced in Russia which is not an OPEC member.
The first 5 maximum oil reserves is in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq respectively. And the first 5 maximum production is in Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, Iran and China respectively.
We all hear something about the price of the oil... ‘Today’s oil price is this much of dollars per barrel...’ ‘Oil prices decreased today or increased...’ A barrel of oil is 159 metric liters and its cost fluctuates according to its supply and demand balance and differs a few dollars when compared with the quality, type, place of production and delivery period.
Oil prices has been a nightmare for the non-oil producers and for the underdeveloped countries for 150 years since oil first ejected in Pittsburg, USA... Wars were created because of oil; a lot of people died; desperate people had to leave their homes; economies collapsed; communities were created struggling with hunger and disease.
However big issues created in the world caused the oil prices to increase excessively and great economic depressions lived in most countries.
1979 Iranian Revolution, 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq wars, 1990-1991 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, 2001 USA September 11 terrorist attacks, 2003-2011 invasion of Iraq by USA, 2010-2012 Arab Spring, 2011 Libyan crisis, 2012-2016 embargo to Iran, Covid-19 and many other international events have upset the oil market...
You do not have comfort in this world whether you have oil or not… A few oil producer countries have comfort only; Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, China, Canada, England and Norway... Because world oil market is under their control and they have strong economies.
However even Venezuela having the greatest oil reserve, Mexico, Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and many others suffer just because of having oil in their lands.
Oil is losing its power rapidly nowadays because of the destruction of the world economy and the transformation of energy demand to renewable energy… Not more than a decade year ago the price of oil per barrel had reached up to 165 dollars but during the worst pandemic period it sunk into 20 dollars.
It is obvious that The Oil Kingdom loses power rapidly and irrecoverably… On the other hand those countries which their economies rely on oil only are going to encounter financial troubles.