For a long time OPEC was an organization with several members struggling in the field of geopolitics, but who came together when making decisions that would allow the price of crude to be controlled, despite the fact that in practice Saudi Arabia has almost always endured with the main sacrifices when it was time to cut production. Outside the cartel there has always been the USA, which was almost always the group’s customers and Russia, the main competitor, since it has been the main exporter of energy sources globally.
However, the USA’s ascendancy in the production of crude oil, derived from shale technology, which allowed the world’s largest economy to have energy independence, a long-desired desire, but which on the other hand transformed the USA from customers to rivals, which ultimately resulted in the approximation, previously unthinkable, between Russia and OPEC, which ended up generating in the creation of the acronym OPEC plus. The need to control the price, since it is not possible to have the understanding of the North American producers, has allowed this cooperation, which is uneven, given that many members continue to not comply with the agreements signed, but the reality of the medium-long term in The level of the green economy should dictate the progressive devaluation of the cartel, being exchanged for China, which has always had an uncomfortable lack of independence in oil, since it produces little.
Indeed, mobility is today in an accelerated process of disruption and 2021 will most likely be a year in which that importance will become more evident in the eyes of the world, and it remains to be seen how the cartel will react to that disruption, taking into account that almost all countries that make it up depend on crude for their state revenues.
