The BBC has an interesting article on the history of OPEC. It is a cartel of various sized tyrannical dictatorships and they control supply and pricing.
Members of OPEC: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Angola.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an association of oil-producing nations set up in 1960 with the express purpose of influencing oil prices by controlling supply.
"Many of the oil-rich states are rich in very little else. Crude oil is their only export, making them uniquely vulnerable to world oil prices. When prices fell to $10 a barrel in 1998, their economies were hit hard. "In the US, OPEC is viewed as a cartel and therefore something to be smashed, which is not a helpful way of thinking about it," says Tony Scanlan of the British Institute of Energy Economics."
"The one thing the OPEC countries all have in common is their absolute reliance on one product - oil."
"...Another factor weakening the cartel is that as oil prices have risen, reserves that were not previously worth tapping in non-OPEC countries have now become viable and Russia has become a particularly significant supplier." (Read).
Many countries are drilling for oil for the first time. Why aren't we?
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