How cartels lose control—Part 2

With petroleum prices lower than probably any OPEC member wants them, $52 this morning, member nations are split between those who want to agree on further production cuts and those who want to have everybody comply with the already-agreed cuts. The difference between the production cuts announced by OPEC and the actual reductions by OPEC members is often considerable and always a source of distrust amongst the members. Because of rampant cupidity and incompetence, nobody trusts official production figures like these.

For example, Venezuela has to adjust its official production figures periodically when the amount of cash coming into the treasury gets out of whack with the volumes claimed by the production people. Consequently, even OPEC members rely on data from third party networks of spies and from the anti-cartel, International Energy Agency. Financial Times has the story here. Part 1 of this n-part series is here.