OPEC ministers put on a brave face when pressed about one of a number of growing threats to the cartel’s influence over world crude oil markets – surging shale oil production in the United States.
At OPEC’s home base in Vienna last week, Saudi Arabia’s powerful oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, played down the impact of the light, sweet crude that is gushing in record volumes from beneath North Dakota’s bald prairie and the scrubby landscape of South Texas.
“This is not the first time new sources of oil are discovered, don’t forget history,” he said. “There was oil from the North Sea and Brazil, so why is there so much talk about shale oil now?” Secretary-general Abdalla El-Badri was even more blunt: “OPEC will be around after shale oil finishes.”
Despite the bluster from the biggest names in the 12-nation group that supplies a third of the world’s oil, however, it is clear the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is getting nervous, and experts are questioning how long the cartel can act together to hold sway over global oil prices.
Read more: OPEC’s slipping grasp on the world’s oil market - The Globe and Mail
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