OPEC - The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC announced / PEK-OH) is among the twelve countries of the agreement in Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Organization, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. OPEC left its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings among the oil ministers of their countries. Indonesia pasitrauke 2008 after it became a net importer of oil, but said that he would probably return if it became a net exporter in the world again.

According to its statutes, one of the main goals is to identify the best way to protect the interests of the cartel, individually and collectively. It will also seek ways and means to stabilize prices in the international oil market, in order to eliminate harmful and unnecessary fluctuations, always taking the United Nations and the mining interests of the need to ensure stable income-producing countries, efficient and continuous supply of oil consuming countries, and ensure a fair return on their capital in the oil industry investments.

OPEC's market power has been widely criticized since its entry into the production and prices. Arab OPEC countries concerned in the developed world, where they use oil weapon "during the Yom Kippur war in the implementation of the embargo on oil and the oil crisis beginning in 1973. Although much of the political explanations for the timing and size of the OPEC price increase is significant in terms of OPEC's point, these changes are caused by Unilateral changes in the past most of the global financial system and the ensuing period of high inflation in the developed and developing countries. This explanation is OPEC's actions both before and after the outbreak of hostilities in October 1973 and concluded that the OPEC countries were just "stop still "a significant increase in oil price in U.S. dollars."

OPEC's ability to control the oil price has declined slightly since then due to subsequent discovery and development of large oil reserves in Alaska and the North Sea, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, Russia and the opening of market modernization. OPEC still accounts for two thirds of the world's oil reserves, and in 2009 In April, 33.3% of world oil production, giving them great control over the global market. The second group of producers, members of the OECD and the post-Soviet states produced only 23.8% and 14.8% respectively of all the world's oil production. 2003 concerns that OPEC members had little more pumping has caused speculation that their influence on crude oil prices began to slide