August 2011, No. 61

OPEC Exclusive

We Have Overcome Hardships 

We have been able to match up to other members in terms of oil industry advances

The Venezuelan representative to board of governors of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced that Iran and Venezuela have succeeded in cooperation with other member states to overcome the existing hardships.

The Venezuelan governor in OPEC, who was addressing a ceremony marking the 50^th anniversary of the Organization in Tehran, added that he was honored to have been invited by Iranian officials to take part in the ceremony.

The Venezuelan official stated that the first meeting of OPEC was held in 1949 in which Iran and Venezuela were present as two major oil producing countries from the Middle East and Latin America.

“OPEC members decided to establish this organization in order to defend their common interests. Venezuela takes advantage of the most advanced technologies in exploiting its oil reserves and the Venezuelan oil industry has caused profound changes in the country. Following the World War II, the Middle East has turned into a major hub of oil production in the world. Low cost of oil production, low taxes as well as inexpensive labor force are major causes of those changes,” he added.

The Venezuelan oil official stated that oil production in the Middle East became very important in 1959 as production in Venezuela gradually fell because it would not have been to Venezuela’s benefit to lower salaries of workers in the oil sector.

“Therefore, a goodwill board was established in 1951 to formulate the first convention of OPEC. The board included representatives from Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia which studied various aspects of oil production in Venezuela and the Middle East. When the first meeting of oil exporting Arab countries was held in Cairo, Iran and Venezuela were there as observers. Throughout the history of OPEC we have been facing problems, but we have managed to overcome those problems in cooperation with other members. We have had good achievements in the 1960s,” he said.

The Venezuelan OPEC governor stated that the Organization succeeded in preventing oil price fall in the 1960s. “The Organization finally managed by unifying strategies of member states to coordinate members and increase oil prices, so as to help member states expand their reserves.”

“Global oil prices were shocked in the 1970s due to wide fluctuations. In the early 1990s, we managed to stabilize the output and this was a great achievement as it enabled us to formulate new regulations and fight the opposite forces. OPEC’s structure gradually became more complicated and more producing countries entered global oil markets. Venezuela finally managed to attune its state oil company with those of other member states. Now under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, we have been able to match up to other members in terms of oil industry advances,” he concluded.