Let the oil flow
ALTHOUGH Venezuela helped to found the Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960, the attractions of breaking the cartel's rules seem to be outweighing the delights of keeping them. Venezuela has been boosting oil production as if OPEC quotas did not exist. It is reckoned to have produced 3.2m barrels per day in May—about 800,000 barrels more than its official OPEC quota. It is not the only over-achiever: the whole of OPEC's production in May was about 27m b/d, 2m more than the total of its quotas. But Venezuela is by far the worst offender.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Let the oil flow”
From the June 14th 1997 edition
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