Search results
The United States, the Seven Sisters, and the Rise of OPEC, 1945–1973. In 1945, the United States was the world’s largest oil producer, accounting for more than 50 percent of global output. 1 Yet the rate of domestic discoveries was declining relative to consumption, which had increased during World War II (1939–1945) and was predicted to grow even greater during the transition to peacetime.
- Overview
- Membership and organization
- History
OPEC, multinational organization that was established to coordinate the petroleum policies of its members and to provide member states with technical and economic aid.
OPEC was established at a conference held in Baghdad September 10–14, 1960, and was formally constituted in January 1961 by five countries:
•Saudi Arabia
•Iran
•Iraq
•Kuwait
•Venezuela
When OPEC was formed in 1960, its main goal was to prevent its concessionaires—the world’s largest oil producers, refiners, and marketers—from lowering the price of oil, which they had always specified, or “posted.” OPEC members sought to gain greater control over oil prices by coordinating their production and export policies, though each member retained ultimate control over its own policy. OPEC managed to prevent price reductions during the 1960s, but its success encouraged increases in production, resulting in a gradual decline in nominal prices (not adjusted for inflation) from $1.93 per barrel in 1955 to $1.30 per barrel in 1970. During the 1970s the primary goal of OPEC members was to secure complete sovereignty over their petroleum resources. Accordingly, several OPEC members nationalized their oil reserves and altered their contracts with major oil companies.
In October 1973, OPEC raised oil prices by 70 percent. In December, two months after the Yom Kippur War (see Arab-Israeli wars), prices were raised by an additional 130 percent, and the organization’s Arab members, which had formed OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) in 1968, curtailed production and placed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and the Netherlands, the main supporters of Israel during the war. The result throughout the West was severe oil shortages and spiraling inflation (see oil crisis). As OPEC continued to raise prices through the rest of the decade (prices increased 10-fold from 1973 to 1980), its political and economic power grew. Flush with petrodollars, many OPEC members began large-scale domestic economic and social development programs and invested heavily overseas, particularly in the United States and Europe. OPEC also established an international fund to aid developing countries.
Although oil-importing countries reacted slowly to the price increases, eventually they reduced their overall energy consumption, found other sources of oil (e.g., in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Mexico), and developed alternative sources of energy, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. In response, OPEC members—particularly Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—reduced their production levels in the early 1980s in what proved to be a futile effort to defend their posted prices.
Production and prices continued to fall in the 1980s. Although the brunt of the production cuts were borne by Saudi Arabia, whose oil revenues shrank by some four-fifths by 1986, the revenues of all producers, including non-OPEC countries, fell by some two-thirds in the same period as the price of oil dropped to less than $10 per barrel. The decline in revenues and the ruinous Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), which pitted two OPEC members against each other, undermined the unity of the organization and precipitated a major policy shift by Saudi Arabia, which decided that it no longer would defend the price of oil but would defend its market share instead. Following Saudi Arabia’s lead, other OPEC members soon decided to maintain production quotas. Saudi Arabia’s influence within OPEC also was evident during the Persian Gulf War (1990–91)—which resulted from the invasion of one OPEC member (Kuwait) by another (Iraq)—when the kingdom agreed to increase production to stabilize prices and minimize any disruption in the international oil market.
The United States is a net oil exporter in 1945, but by 1950 it is importing nearly one million barrels a day and within two decades the country is importing over six million barrels per day ...
- Mohammed Aly Sergie
F ew people are aware of it today, but OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed in response to the U.S. imposition of import quotas on oil. In 1959 the U.S. government established a Mandatory Oil Import Quota Program (MOIP) restricting the amount of crude oil (and refined products) that could be imported into the United States.
OPEC became prominent in supporting the oil sector, as part of global efforts to address the economic crisis. OPEC’s second and third summits in Caracas and Riyadh in 2000 and 2007 established stable energy markets, sustainable development and the environment as three guiding themes, and it adopted a comprehensive long-term strategy in 2005.
The 1973 oil crisis began in October of that year when the members of the Arab sub-group of OPEC proclaimed an oil embargo against the United States and other industrialized nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen from US $3 per barrel to nearly $12 globally.
People also ask
How did OPEC change the world?
Why was OPEC formed?
What impact did OPEC have on oil?
Why did OPEC join the world oil market?
Why did OPEC fail in the 1960s?
How did the US influence OPEC?
The Oil Market in the 1980s: OPEC Oil Policy and Economic Development. pp. 24. ↑ L. Maugeri. The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resource. pp. 136. ↑ I. Skeet. OPEC: Twenty-Five Years of Oil Prices and Politics'. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1988, pp. 184. ↑ L. Maugeri.
