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60 years of OPEC: Is the cartel's power over the oil market broken?

The main reason OPEC was able to wrest this control in 1973 was that in 1970, crude oil production in Texas started to fall

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OPEC found it was able to simply set the price of oil where it wanted; customers had no choice but to pay, and the oil majors had to do what OPEC said or lose access to that oil. (Bloomberg)

Ellen R. Wald | Bloomberg

5 min read Last Updated : Sep 15 2020 | 12:03 PM IST

This week marks the 60th anniversary of OPEC, the cartel of major oil exporters that has, at times, held sway over the oil markets. It is a good time to ask: Is it still effective? The truth is that OPEC's power to impact the price of oil has waxed and waned over the past 60 years but has always been based on the portion of global spare capacity that it controls. With plenty of crude sloshing around in storage tanks worldwide, that makes it not so effective now.

When the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was formed in 1960, it

Topics : OPEC OPEC output OPEC meeting

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