Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental organisation for coordinating member governments' petroleum policies. Its statutory objectives include price stability, regular supply and returns to producers and investors. It provides a forum for collective decisions over a strategic commodity, but its existence or a production adjustment does not by itself establish a coercive campaign. [OPEC, Statute, Articles 1-3; editorial classification.]

Foundation, mandate and governance

Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela founded OPEC at the Baghdad Conference of 10-14 September 1960. Its headquarters moved to Vienna in 1965. The Statute identifies three organs: the Conference, the Board of Governors and the Secretariat. The Conference is supreme; the Board directs organisational management and implementation of Conference decisions; and the Secretariat performs executive functions under the Board. These are organisational powers, not evidence that the Secretariat directly commands national producers. [OPEC, Statute, Articles 1, 9-10, 20 and 25; Shihab-Eldin, 24 March 2005.]

Member governments are represented at the Conference. Each full member has one vote, and non-procedural decisions require unanimity under Article 11. The Statute separately provides for admission of members and attendance by non-member observers. Participation in a joint producer meeting therefore does not, by itself, confer OPEC membership. [OPEC, Statute, Articles 7 and 11.]

Membership and statistical scope

The US Energy Information Administration's October 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook defines OPEC as 11 countries: Algeria, Congo (Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Its July 2026 UAE country brief reports the UAE's departure from 1 May 2026. These are dated official statistical classifications and reporting, not a legal determination of the withdrawal procedure. [EIA, October 2026, Tables 3a and 3d notes; EIA, July 2026, p. 1.]

That distinction matters because Article 8 of the retained 2021 Statute ordinarily makes withdrawal notice effective at the beginning of the following calendar year, subject to financial obligations. The EIA reporting does not explain how the UAE's departure was formalised under that provision. The 11-country classification is used here with that limitation; historical series and old website navigation must not silently be substituted for a dated membership definition. [OPEC, Statute, Article 8; EIA, October 2026.]

Production coordination and market influence

Joint production commitments, national implementation and measured output are separate objects of analysis. The original Declaration of Cooperation recorded specified country commitments, voluntary adjustment or managed decline, and a monitoring committee. Its text does not prove that every promised reduction occurred. Likewise, current production, capacity, exports and announced adjustments should not be treated as interchangeable. [OPEC, Declaration of Cooperation, 10 December 2016, pp. 2-3; EIA, October 2026, Tables 3c-3d.]

OPEC's announcement concerning seven producers' meeting on 7 June 2026 described a voluntary adjustment for July, named the participating countries and retained flexibility to increase, pause or reverse the phase-out. This is a dated illustration of a subgroup decision, not a claim about the adjustment in force today. On 12 October 2026, participating ministers reaffirmed consultation through the established joint ministerial bodies and their commitment to market stability. Those statements establish declared arrangements and objectives, not realised compliance or a successful price effect. [OPEC, June and October 2026 statements.]

The scale of influence depends on the denominator and membership used. EIA estimated that OPEC including the UAE supplied 35 per cent of world crude oil production in 2025; excluding the UAE from that same historical comparison produces 31 per cent. Neither is a current 2026 market-share figure. Crude oil is also narrower than petroleum and other liquids. EIA's October outlook separately identifies production disruptions, inventories, transport constraints and forecast assumptions, illustrating why a price change cannot be assigned to an OPEC decision merely because it followed a meeting. [EIA, 23 June 2026; October 2026, Global Oil Markets and Tables 3a-3d.]

The Declaration of Cooperation and OPEC+

OPEC and participating non-OPEC producers reached the Declaration of Cooperation on 10 December 2016. The broader grouping is commonly called OPEC+. The original declaration distinguishes OPEC members from participating non-members and creates a joint monitoring arrangement, with assistance from the OPEC Secretariat. It should be described as that cooperation framework, rather than as an enlargement of statutory OPEC membership. The 2016 and 2017 commitments retained here establish its origins, not the current list of every participant or production obligation. [OPEC, Declaration of Cooperation, pp. 2-3 and 5-8; OPEC, 10 December 2025; EIA, 23 June 2026.]

The 1973 distinction

The 1973 oil embargo requires identification of the participating Arab governments and their objectives, rather than attribution to OPEC as an undifferentiated body. A US memorandum of conversation dated 17 October 1973 records Saudi-Egyptian discussions of production reductions and the conditions for a targeted embargo. The official documentary edition separately distinguishes the Arab producers' cutbacks from Persian Gulf OPEC members' posted-price decision. These records concern that episode and do not establish the purpose of later OPEC adjustments. [US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, volume XXXVI, document 218, and volume XXV, document 200.]

Strategic purpose and limits

OPEC's 2021 Statute includes an immunity provision in Article 6A. Its existence does not settle how a particular national court would treat a particular claim. This entry makes no general competition-law or sovereign-immunity conclusion from the organisation's commonly used cartel label. [OPEC, Statute, Article 6A; limitation of scope.]

OPEC remains in the Encyclopedia's context sequence. Its institutional mandate and producer coordination establish relevance to economic statecraft; a specific campaign still needs evidence of public authority, sender, target, objective and intended transmission. Claims that a production change sought to discipline a rival or obtain a diplomatic concession require decision-specific evidence. Institutional statements of market stability and an observed price movement alone do not supply it. [Editorial classification and evidential limitation.]

See also

Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries · Arab oil embargo and production cuts (1973-1974) · Commodity weaponisation · Energy weaponisation · Oil embargo · Producer-state production coordination · Swing-producer price warfare · International Energy Agency

Sources

• OPEC, Statute, 2021 edition, Articles 1-3, 6A-11, 20 and 25, complete official text accessed 31 October 2026.
• Adnan Shihab-Eldin, 'Oil and Development: The role of OPEC: A historical perspective and outlook to the future', speech as Director of Research acting for the OPEC Secretary General, Vienna, 24 March 2005.
• US Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Global Oil Markets and Tables 3a-3d; inputs finalised 1 October 2026. The monthly URL can change; the October issue is retained in the review evidence.
• US Energy Information Administration, Country Analysis Brief: United Arab Emirates, updated July 2026, p. 1.
• OPEC, Declaration of Cooperation, meeting texts of 10 December 2016 and 30 November 2017, pp. 2-3 and 5-8; complete OPEC publication retained by the National University of La Plata's Institute of International Relations.
• OPEC, 'Nine years for the historic Declaration of Cooperation', 10 December 2025.
• OPEC, 'Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman adjust production and reaffirm commitment to market stability', statement describing the meeting of 7 June 2026 and July implementation. The URL's date is not used as proof of the meeting date.
• OPEC, 'Energy and Oil ministers of countries participating in the Declaration of Cooperation held a meeting in Riyadh', 12 October 2026.
• US Energy Information Administration, 'UAE's exit from OPEC+ reduced the group's share of crude oil production and capacity', Today in Energy, 23 June 2026. The 2025 share comparison is an EIA estimate.
• US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXXVI, Energy Crisis, 1969-1974, document 218, 'Memorandum of Conversation', Riyadh, 17 October 1973, paragraphs 5-8; an account of the conversation, not the final resolution of the producer meeting.
• US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XXV, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1973, document 200, 'Editorial Note', pp. 586-588; an official editorial synthesis identifying its underlying diplomatic records.