OPEC

OPEC or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is an intergovernmental organization that is made up of twelve countries which currently include: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

From September 10^th through the 14^th of 1960, government officials from Venezuelan and Saudi Arabian sponsored a meeting in Baghdad, Iraq. This meeting included officials from Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and was held to discuss ways to increase the price of crude oil that was being produced and sold into the world market place within each country.  The ultimate purpose of the meeting was more or less an attempt to get most of the oil exporting countries to agree upon a set price per barrel as well as placing a limit on the number of barrels of oil that each country could offer to the market place. This meeting led to the formation of OPEC and can perhaps be best described as the most successful monopoly known today.

Collectively, the combined membership of the OPEC countries are believed to hold about 75% of the global oil reserves and they produce about 40% of the world’s oil.

As of February, 2011 according to a report in the Huffington Post Russia is now the top oil producer in the world ; with a daily production of 9.5 million barrels, 5.4 million of which is sold into the world market.  Saudi Arabia is now #2 at 8.5 million barrels per day.  Although the United States comes in as the 3^rd largest producer at 5.4 million barrels daily, Americans  consistently use 18.8 million barrels per day; that’s 22% of the worlds supply.  Iran produces 4 million barrels a day and is ranked as the 4^th largest producer; China is # 5 (3.8 million barrels a day); Mexico exports ½ of its 2.6 million barrels produced each day and is the 6^th largest world producer; Canada comes in at # 7 by producing almost the an equal amount to Mexico; War torn Iraq is # 9 and our often “trouble making” South American neighbor Venezuela (# 11) produces 2.3 million barrels daily and exports 1.3 million barrels of that production every day.

When anyone (American or otherwise) looks at the amount of oil consumed in within the United States on a daily basis the prevailing line of thought has to be shock if not outright loathing.   Is it any wonder that America is not only the most coveted nation on earth but the most hated as well?

With current fuel prices higher than they have ever been in the history of the United States; what have we as Americans done to make things better? We’ve increased our annual consumption of petroleum products by a whopping 2%; that’s 376,000 more barrels a day not gallons a day.

Think about this little fact: The United States uses 18.8 million barrels of oil every day; or should I say, sucks down, more oil each day than China (consumes 8.3 million barrels a day), Japan (4.4 million), India (3.1 million), and Russia (2.7 million) combined; and to add insult to injury, they are the next 4 biggest consumers of oil on the planet. Hot damn! We’re # 1!

This is a fact: there is a fixed number of barrels of oil that can be retrieved or pumped out of the earth and then there is quite simply no more; not even in our great-great grand children’s time!

Have you ever heard the terms “peak oil supply”? Well that simply means all of the available oil has reached the highest possible supply point because there really is just so much … when that point is reached, the available oil supply will swiftly decline …some geologists / experts in regard to oil reserve studies believe we are already there.  

Having considered this, I would expect you may want to have another look at bio diesel fuel production which I discussed in an earlier post.  Combine that with may-be a required 30 miles + per gallon for all autos manufactured / sold in the U S; say by 2015, if we do that, and implement a few other energy conserving actions, we might survive the 21^st century as a civilized nation.

Sources …                                                            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/oil-producers-exporters-t_n_826564.html#s244330&title=1_Russia                           http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/28/surprising-facts-about-us-andoil/    http://rationalrevolution.net/war/opec.htm                            http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/25.htm                                      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC