OPEC Oil Producers - A Guide to Who They Are
How Much Oil OPEC Has and How Much its Big Members Produce
OPEC has thirteen member states, most of which – but not all – are located in the Middle East. It is therefore not a Middle Eastern organization, or an “Arab” one for that matter. OPEC’s members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
As Indonesia is now a net oil importer it announced in May 2008 that will leave OPEC at the end of this year, while in 2007 Angola joined the oil exporter’s group and Ecuador rejoined it after a fifteen year absence. OPEC was originally founded in Baghdad in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Some of the world’s biggest oil exporters are not members of OPEC, such as Russia, Mexico, Canada and Norway. Neither is Brazil, which is reported to be thinking about joining OPEC since recent offshore oil finds will boost its oil export potential. The US, which is the world’s third largest oil producer, has never been a member of OPEC. In fact as the world’s largest oil market the US is also the largest oil importer in the world.
How much of global oil production is OPEC’s share? According to OPEC’s monthly Oil Market Report for June 2008, OPEC produced just over 37 percent of the world’s crude oil supply, which according to the OPEC report has reached 86.6 million barrels per day (b/d).
And who are the bigger OPEC oil producers? OPEC’s monthly report states that Saudi Arabia produced 9.1 million b/d in May 2008, Iran 3.9 million b/d, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait 2.6 million b/d each, Iraq 2.4 million b/d and Venezuela 2.3 million b/d. So clearly the major OPEC oil producers are Middle Eastern petro-states, but Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia and Nigeria are substantial oil producers as well.
Compare these oil production levels of the major OPEC exporters with the big non-OPEC producers, of which there are quite a few. Russia vies with Saudi Arabia as the largest oil producer in the world, with the OPEC monthly report expecting Russia to produce 9.9 million b/d in 2008. Meanwhile Canada will produce 3.4 million b/d in 2008, Mexico 3.2 million b/d, and Norway 2.4 million b/d. All these producers are major oil exporters.
The US is expected to produce 7.6 million b/d of oil this year, which will be used to meet domestic consumption needs as the US consumes about 20 million b/d of oil (or nearly one in four barrels of oil produced around the world). China (3.7 million b/d) is another major producer whose output primarily meets domestic needs.
While OPEC produces nearly 40 percent of the world’s oil, the US Energy Information Administration estimates that OPEC producers have around two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves. The bulk of the world’s estimated oil reserves are located in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. Indeed the BP 2008 Statistical Review of World Energy shows that these four OPEC countries alone have half the world’s estimated known oil reserves, with around 618 billion bbl.
So OPEC is definitely the major player in today’s global oil market, producing 40 percent half the world’s oil and having two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves. OPEC’s oil policies will be closely watched by the big oil-consuming economies over the next few decades.
