OPEC and OPEC+ Countries

About OPEC

It is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela). HQ is in Vienna, Austria.
It aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price of oil in the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that might affect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries.
The current OPEC members are the following:
1. South America: Venezuela (Ecuador left).
2. Africa: Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, DRC Congo (joined in 2018).
3. Asia: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia (the De facto leader).
4. Former OPEC members are Ecuador, Indonesia and Qatar.
OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the organization.
They have an estimated 44% of global oil production and 81.5% of the world's "proven" oil reserves. India sources about 86 % of crude oil, 75 % of natural gas and 95 % of LPG from OPEC member nations.
A larger group called OPEC+ was formed in late 2016 to have more control on global crude oil market. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the demand for OPEC oil has fallen to a 30-year low in second quarter of 2020.

OPEC+

The non-OPEC countries which export crude oil along with the 14 OPECs are termed as OPEC plus countries.
OPEC plus countries = Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan, and Sudan.
India is not a member of OPEC + countries.
OPEC member countries produce about 40 percent of the world’s crude oil.
Equally important to global prices, OPEC’s oil exports represent about 60 percent of the total petroleum traded internationally.
Saudi and Russia, had three-year alliance of oil producers known as OPEC Plus — which now includes 11 OPEC members and 10 non-OPEC nations — that aims to shore up oil prices with production cuts.

Source: TH

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