🔔 What's the point of OPEC? 🛢

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OPEC+ are in the headlines again this week.

They just can't reach an agreement...

The UAE want to pump more NOW (so it can prepare for a non-oil future) 🙄

This classic quote becomes relevant again:

There are now 13 (+10) OPEC members who need to agree.

So what purpose does OPEC actually serve? Why does OPEC+ even exist?

Some say they are just a shady cartel, intent on fixing prices to their own benefit.

To some extent, they are fixing prices...

However, the oil market is complex.

I like to think of OPEC+ as the central bank of oil.

It's an imperfect metaphor, but bear with me.

Much the same as central banks fix the supply and price of interest rates in the pursuit of financial stability, OPEC does the same for the oil market.

Just like central banks and their inflation targets, they don't always achieve their objectives nor is their influence continuous.

Many questioned the relevance of OPEC when the shale boom saw the U.S. briefly become the largest global oil producer.

Excessive global production sent prices below $30 per barrel at the peak of the shale boom 👆 and the disagreement between the Saudis & Russia sent the price negative in 2020 when the pandemic saw demand evaporate.  

Officially, the OPEC mission is to 'coordinate and unify the petroleum policies 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.'

Essentially, their purpose is to provide stability.

To avoid the boom and bust cycles so typical in the commodities industry.

We can definitely question how successful they have been in the pursuit of that mission...

However, a non-OPEC world would likely be less stable.

Prices could fluctuate to greater extremes as producers aggressively competed with each other to gain market share, driving prices lower until someone loses (some producers fall into bankruptcy.)

Then prices would head higher as those countries decided to take their revenge on the 'winners', imperiling global supply...

Co-operation can avoid these worst-case outcomes, where "society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed" 👇

Recommended Reading on the history of oil and the invention of the spot oil market:

(Marc Rich founded the company that we now know as Glencore)

And some background on the OPEC+ oil giants and their reserves 👇👇👇

Whilst Venezuela have enormous oil reserves, their production is so tiny now that they wield little influence...