Crude Oil And Prices: Opec Needs To Be Shut Down!

Crude oil is one of the main fossil fuels that we rely heavily on. It is used as our dominate fuel source for making gas for automobiles, airplanes, and boats. As of late the price of oil has increased and gas prices have also rose to higher levels. Three recent articles in Monday's Wall Street Journal were on the subject of oil and gas prices. The three articles were OPEC Sets Emergency Meetings to Output Cuts by Ayesha Daya and Michael Williams, Refined Reasons by Beth Heinsohn, Going Deep by Russell Gold. Each article has a different story to tell but all aim to inform the reader on the current issues relating to oil and gas prices.

The first article is OPEC Sets Emergency Meetings to Output Cuts by Ayesha Daya and Michael Williams. This article talks about OPEC the controlling group that helps oversee the production and supply of most of the world's oil. The article explains that the price of oil has recently fallen from the high $70 a barrel it once was down to less than $60 a barrel during the week before the article. The article talks about a meeting with the members of OPEC in Doha, Qatar so that they can discuss cutting oil production and output. OPEC is thinking of cutting oil production and output by as much as 1 million barrels of oil a day, which is roughly about 4% of the current total output on an average day which is estimated to be around 27.5 million barrels. The reason they want to do this is so that the supply is less and then the price will then return to the high levels it was before the last few weeks. This will mean higher prices per barrel and higher prices for everyone at the gas pumps. The article then goes into saying that not all OPEC members want to cut there production levels, the Untied Arab Emirates (UAE) stated that they have no desire to cut production or output. This is because they don't want to be the ones to have there production cut so that they can keep selling their oil at current levels at a higher price in order to control more market share.

The main forces in OPEC who want to cut and decrease output and production in order to increase prices are Venezuela and Iran. But other members such as Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Libya have increased production in recent years to meet up with demand and try to keep prices reasonable. The real hope for many consumers in the US is that production and output stays the same or increases in order to keep the prices of gas and oil down.

The second article ties into the first article by talking about high gas prices at the pumps. Refined Reasons by Beth Heinsohn