Ok fine i will

Part 1

Ok, OPEC. What is it? It's an intergovernmental organization (oligopoly) that currently manages 13 oil exporting nations in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Malaysia chose to leave OPEC in 2016. Qatar and Ecuador did too in the last couple years.

What is its goal? To stabilize oil prices among its constituent nations in order to help underdeveloped nations grow their national economies. In other words, OPEC wants to stabilize the value of global oil trade so that its member nations can effectively reinvest profits from the sale of oil back into their own economies.

Where is OPEC's headquarters? Vienna, Austria. It was originally founded in Baghdad, but quickly decided that housing its headquarters in a neutral state was the most beneficial way to ease diplomatic tensions. Switzerland said GTFO, but Vienna said "ok, we don't care."

What does OPEC actually do? It analyzes the global oil trade, publishes that analysis, and regulates the oil production of its member states in order to stabilize the actual delivery of oil to global customers and ensure economic reliability to its member nations. 

Why is that a thing? Well, capital markets are a zero sum game. If for whatever reason the value of say ExxonMobil's particular source of petroleum rises, the value of everyone elses' oil declines by an equal amount. OPEC's actual mission is trying to determine all of those values in order to correlate actual supply with actual demand. Extracting oil when you don't need to is wasteful, not extracting oil when it's needed means you have nothing to sell. Either way you're losing value.

Isn't that price fixing? No, not really. It's value stabilization. Value and price are completely different things. Saudi Arabia can supposedly ramp up extraction for around $3 a barrel compared to Russia's $30+, so Saudi Arabia's oil is more valuable in the face of a demand surge. Saudi Arabia the Capitalist wants that reflected in the price tag, Russia the Capitalist does not. That's the supposed "price war" between OPEC and Russia that led to Russia leaving OPEC+.

From what i've read, OPEC politely asked Russia to help them stabilize prices, Russia decreased its production accordingly but warned that decreasing production too much would make the reuptake worse, OPEC decided it didn't like Russia's advice and HOLY SHIT CHINA NEEDS HOW MUCH OIL THIS MORNING?!?!

So, all of us top 7 economies released an appropriate amount of our own reserves to mitigate the physical damage and get the actual oil shuffling around for as little price increase as possible because Saudi Arabia said they would be more than happy to oblige for a shitload of profits. You might have read different things than me, so feel free to jump in wherever.

Remember though, that's not really what OPEC cares about. Guessing exactly when the market will shift is impossible for anyone, OPEC cares about maintaining the comparative values of its member states in relation to non member states because they all tend to fire missiles at each other when things get out of whack. Everybody is still reading OPEC's reports as the basis for their own decisions because OPEC is doing the vast majority of the research and controls nearly half of all the oil anyone knows exists in a place drills can reach.

We, by the way, are not innocent bystanders. We raised our hands and said "hey everybody, we found a bunch of garbage shale oil up near Canada. Canada and us wouldn't dare use it for anything, but we'd be happy to sell it real cheap if you're capable of making some usable product from it. We'll even pump it straight out to the Gulf of Mexico, if you'd like." Biden thankfully shut that down.

Are OPEC's rules and advisements good or not? Dunno, remember that OPEC replaced our own cartel because gigantic multi-national oil companies already influence global market prices. ExxonMobil or Shell or BP directly affect the economies of entire countries with relatively small decisions. Pretty sure Nigeria wants to be its own country, not a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips.

Ok, that part's out of the way, but i feel like we need a refresher on the difference between market value and real world objects because i don't think anyone really understands just how many degrees of Kevin Bacon get us from those oil derricks of my youthful memories to the decades long presence of our military in the Middle East, especially when Palestine and Israel are involved. Not tonight, though, this was a lot of work.