OPEC IS NOT A CARTEL.

It would not be an exaggeration to assert that a reliable economic or political model of OPEC decision-making has yet to be formulated. So far, predictions and forecasts about OPEC pricing have proven to be wrong. From the start, OPEC was labeled an "oil cartel," although strictly speaking this was never the case. OPEC has never supplied more than a fraction of world oil consumption, and of course an even smaller proportion of total energy consumption. Even if one restricts discussion to the world export market for petroleum, a small but increasing share of exports is supplied by non-OPEC producers. OPEC did not collapse and only the most myopic continue to proclaim its imminent demise. Yet there is still no adequate explanation for its survival. Some have asserted that large multinationals are coordinating oil supplies for the OPEC producers, but little evidence to that effect has been presented. And procedures like formal supply rationing rules or an enforcement apparatus, which would ordinarily be a sine qua non for price-fixing, do not seem to exist in OPEC.