Who started OPEC?
Venezuela! (I didn’t know that!) They did it as a way to calm the volatile market price fluctuations of oil while simultaneously ensuring a profit for its members. Ultimately, the market sets oil prices and prices move because of fluctuations in supply, demand and perceptions of risk. 6. OPEC tries to leverage supply to control the market price of oil by setting production quotas for its members. However, many times OPEC members do not follow these quotas. FACTOID: As of 2008 Venezuela is only producing 73% of its OPEC quota. They say they are doing this to keep prices high, but the reality is that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has used the massive oil revenues of Venezuela to fund social projects and political projects in the region at the expense of maintaining and modernizing Venezuela’s oil infrastructure. This combined with President Chavez’ policy of nationalizing the assets of foreign oil companies and placing politically friendly but inexperienced executives in charge of oil
