Cp's questions to Adam Smith

[Lifer]

Do more sellers command a higher market price or lower?

Do the members of opec belong to the organization to get a higher price of oil or lower?

Had some follow up questions to your questions to Adam Smith.

How is a supplier of 15 to 20% (Canada) of a market get compared to a supplier of 75% (OPEC) of a market?

How does this 15 to 20% supplier command some one who has choices?

[cottonpicken]

I cant believe this.
Those are retorical questions with answers so blindling obvious to prove a point.

Would anyone else care to step up to the plate and prove themselves retarded?Please i'm dying to know where everyone else stands on these questions.

[AdamSmith]

CP, educate us. Please!

Were not real bright here so keep it at an OPEC 101 level.

We will defer to your brilliance!

[Lifer]

I understood those questions as rhetorical.

I thought they were good questions to use to learn a little more about this idea that the CWB has real power in the marketplace and is able to extract value.

I would like to learn more about how commodities work that's why I read this stuff. I guess if that is retarded so be it.

I started in another thread because it didn't seem to have much to do with the topic in the thread. (to state the obvious)

Thank you sir or ma'am or whatever for reading this.

[Fransisco]

Now what form of respect is it to call someone retarded?

I must have missed that one in charm school.

[AdamSmith]

FYI
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/OPEC_Revenues/OPEC.html
OVERVIEW

OPEC net oil export revenues for 2005 (see table) are now estimated at around $473 billion, up 43 percent from 2004 levels. For 2006 and 2007, OPEC net oil export revenues are forecast at $522 billion and $495 billion, respectively. Several major world events during 2004 and 2005 affected world oil markets and contributed to the spike in OPEC oil export revenues. These included: 1) low OECD oil inventories held in commercial storage, particularly in terms of “days forward consumption;” 2) uncertainty about the flow of Iraqi oil exports in the face of the high level of turmoil within that country; 3) damage inflicted on U.S. Gulf Coast and offshore oil installations last fall following a series of destructive hurricanes (Ivan, Katrina, Rita, etc.); 4) an unexpectedly strong surge in world oil demand, particularly in China; and 5) capacity constraints (production, refining, and transportation).

OPEC net oil export revenues in real (inflation adjusted) terms are currently running nearly triple the average annual revenues seen during the 1990s, but remain below the peaks reached in 1980 and 1981. The boom-bust cycle of oil revenues seen over the past 30 years (the 1973 and 1979 oil price shocks; the 1985/86 oil price collapse; the 1990/91 Iraq crisis and oil price spike; the 1997/98 Asian economic crisis and oil price collapse; the current uncertainty regarding terrorist threats, Middle East instability, surging oil demand, etc.), makes long-term budgetary planning a challenge in many OPEC countries, and also complicates efforts to deal with balance of payments deficits, accumulated debt, budget problems, economic reform and rapid population growth.

Since their collapse to under $10 per barrel in December 1998, the lowest oil price since prior to the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, oil prices have rebounded strongly, to over $60 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate as of early January 2006. The OPEC "basket" price (a weighted average of Algeria's Saharan Blend, Indonesia's Minas, Nigeria's Bonny Light, Saudi Arabia's Arabian Light, Dubai's Fateh, Venezuela's Tia Juana, and Mexico's Isthmus), for instance, averaged about $51 per barrel during 2005, more than four times its 1998 level. For 2006 and 2007, EIA forecasts the OPEC basket average around $55.25 and $52.50 per barrel, respectively. (It is worth noting that the relationship of the OPEC basket to other world oil prices has shifted somewhat recently; this is believed to be the result of a number of factors, including world refinery constraints and a reduction in OPEC spare production capacity for the light, sweet crudes that constitute the "marginal demand barrel" worldwide. Also, please note that OPEC recently redefined the basket, which is now heavier and more "sour" -- higher sulfur -- than the previous basket.)

World oil price spikes and crashes are, in many respects, cyclical, as they affect oil supply and demand. For example, the oil price collapse of 1998 led to a large number of well closures (as well as a reduction in oil exploration and production) in non-OPEC countries, including the United States, where thousands of so-called "stripper" wells were shut down in Oklahoma and Texas. The price collapse also tended to stimulate world oil demand. Higher oil prices since 1999, on the other hand, have tended to encourage an upsurge in oil sector drilling activity and a reduction in oil demand growth.
------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

The principle aim of the organization, according to its Statute, is the determination of the best means for safeguarding their interests, individually and collectively; devising ways and means of ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations; giving due regard at all times to the interests of the producing nations and to the necessity of securing a steady income to the producing countries; an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations, and a fair return on their capital to those investing in the petroleum industry."[3]

OPEC's influence on the market has been called into question. Several members of OPEC alarmed the world and triggered high inflation across both the developing and developed world when they used oil embargoes in the 1973 oil crisis. OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has diminished somewhat since then, due to the subsequent discovery and development of large oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, the opening up of Russia, and market modernization. OPEC nations still account for two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, and, in 2005, 41.7% of the world's oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market. The next largest group of producers, members of the OECD and the Post-Soviet states produced only 23.8% and 14.8%, respectively, of the world's total oil production.[4] However, in August 2004, OPEC began communicating that its members had little excess pumping capacity, indicating that the cartel was losing influence over crude oil prices.

[just_wondering]

Cotton probably took a Trusted Conections course, and now he knows it all.
I love retorical questions that leave so much open.

[Fransisco]

And its voluntary.

<blockquote>Ecuador and Gabon were members of OPEC, but Ecuador withdrew on December 31st, 1992 because they were unwilling or unable to pay a $2 million dollar membership fee and felt that they needed to produce more oil than they were allowed to under the OPEC quota. Similar concerns prompted Gabon to follow suit in January 1995.Indonesia is reconsidering its membership having become a net importer and being unable to meet its production quota.</blockquote>

[Fransisco]

Preconcieved notions aren't always what they're cracked up to be.

[IAMTHEMOLE]

We are a predictable, trusted, politically stable supplier who happens to be next door to the largest consumer of energy on the planet.