Word: bbl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Scarcely a dozen years ago, in the short span of two months, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries arrogantly assaulted the industrialized world by quadrupling oil prices, to $11.65 per bbl. At a four-day meeting in Geneva last week, OPEC showed only a shadow of its former power. With the world awash in oil and consumption down, the once all-powerful OPEC cartel has an ever diminishing impact on global markets...
...most estimates, 80% of all oil produced today sells for as much as $2 per bbl. below OPEC's prices, the highest of which is $28 per bbl. for top-quality light crude. Moreover, the cartel now produces only 43% of the West's oil, vs. 63% in 1979. The rest is pumped by such countries as Mexico, the U.S. and Britain, none of which belongs to OPEC. Three weeks ago Mexico dropped its price to $3 per bbl. below OPEC levels...
...crossroads," admitted Subroto, Indonesia's Oil Minister and the current president of OPEC, at the start of the session. Yet the most that the ministers could agree on was minor adjustments like lowering OPEC's price for the heaviest grade of Saudi crude by a token 50¢ per bbl...
OPEC put off until the fall the touchy matter of how much oil each producer could pump. In October the members agreed on an overall output ceiling of 16 million bbl. per day. Any new plan would reshuffle quotas within that limit, but several countries want their quotas increased. Said Subroto: "The potato was too hot to handle." The point is moot. As demand has dropped off, OPEC members now pump only about 14.5 million bbl. daily because that is all they can sell...
OPEC's troubles and the world oil glut are especially hitting Saudi Arabia, the organization's biggest and richest producer. Saudi output has dropped from a peak of 10.3 million bbl. per day in 1981 to 2 million bbl. per day in June, its lowest level in 20 years. Britain, a relative newcomer to the ranks of big-time producers with its North Sea fields, is pumping more oil than Saudi Arabia...