Why are oil prices falling?
What has caused this stunning dive in oil prices? Too much production, to be sure, but a the US-China trade spat with no end in sight, and slowing economic activity—and maybe even early signs of a recession—in China.
Trump orders OPEC to pump more—and lower prices. He’s barking up the wrong tree
President Trump wants lower pump prices—and he’s looking to OPEC, the club of oil producers, to make it happen. Not only is it rare for a US president to do this openly, but it’s misguided: OPEC members are deeply divided on the production-price question, and OPEC’s share of global production—even if their members did agree—would have only a marginal effect on prices anyway.
Calm before the Storm: The Global Oil Industry in the 1960s
The international oil industry of the 1960s was a period of incredible growth—in production, reserves, demand and countless new oil-based consumer products. However, beneath this apparent stability, the domination of a handful of Western-based oil companies who, for decades essentially controlled how much oil would be produced and how it would be sold, was ceding to a more diverse—and more unstable—international oil order.
Origins of OPEC: The lead-up to the creation of the world’s oil producing cartel
OPEC, the club of some of the world’s largest oil exporters, was formed in 1960 by five countries—Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. These countries, despite their many differences, were united on the question of asserting greater control over their countries’ most important resource and preventing further price cuts.
