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Energy insight: Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Republic of the Congo
Why did OPEC come about?
How does a country become a member of OPEC?
The five founding members have to concur with a new country joining, and then three quarters of all OPEC members have also to agree.
OPEC meetings
The member states meet in Vienna, where their Secretariat is based, to agree on new members, quotas and other policy issues. This neutral location has allowed OPEC to continue to function even while individual members have been at war with one another, such as during the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-1988 and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
What qualifies a country to be an OPEC member?
Exporters
Petroleum policies
What else do OPEC members have in common?
As well as net exporters, they are of course all major oil producers.
From OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2019
The Republic of the Congo has the stated aim to become sub Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer (after Nigeria and Angola) with a target of 350,000 b/d by the end of 2018
How does OPEC influence oil markets?
OPEC has attempted to influence the price of crude oil on international markets by controlling its supply. The member countries, at their meetings, agree on the amount of oil each country is allowed to produce. These quotas are not always complied with. In July 2018 S&P Global Platts reported that individual OPEC’s country’s compliance with their quotas will not be reported, but rather OPEC’s compliance with a collective production ceiling.
Relationships with other oil exporting countries
[In 2016 the APPA comprised 18 Member Countries, including five OPEC Member States - Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Libya and Nigeria. The others are: Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, South Africa and Sudan. – nearly all the African oil producers]
On 10 December 2016 A Declaration of Cooperation was issued stating that: “Azerbaijan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Sultanate of Oman, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Sudan, and the Republic of South Sudan committed to adjust their respective oil production, voluntarily or through managed decline, in accordance with an accelerated schedule. The combined reduction adjustment was agreed at 558,000 barrels a day for the aforementioned producers.”
Further reading and sources of information
What drives crude oil prices?: Supply OPEC Energy Information Adminstration (EIA) 2018
OPEC publications
OPEC Annual Statistical bulletin detailed statistics from each OPEC country, and also statistics from the rest of the world’s oil industry
OPEC bulletin (about 8 issues a year) - gives news of member countries and a Brief market overview
Other relevent EI Energy Insights
Energy Insight: Prices: OPEC crude prices - current (2008-2017)
Energy Insight: Historical crude oil prices 1861 - 2016
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