
Qatar to withdraw from OPEC as of January - bgeils
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/03/qatar-to-withdraw-from-opec-as-of-january-2019.html
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benj111
So could someone flesh this out a bit more?

Does this say more about Qatar or Opec?

My completely uninformed guess would be that smaller producers are better off
outside the cartel. They can then set them selves up to be counter cyclical.
Pumping when others aren't and visa versa. Without moving the supply needle
very much, and so getting better prices. I guess they don't have much
influence in Opec, and Opec aren't worried because they aren't a big producer.

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jpatokal
It's mostly about Qatar, which recently had a very public falling out with
Saudi Arabia and is currently being blockaded by most of its neighbours, who
also compose the bulk of OPEC:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Qatar_diplomat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Qatar_diplomatic_crisis)

Also, while Qatar is a huge natural gas producer, their oil production is by
Gulf standards small and this is unlikely to sway the global price much. It
is, however, yet another step in OPEC's slow slide to irrelevance, since
Russia and now, thanks to fracking, the US produce huge quantities of oil
outside the cartel.

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benj111
Thanks.

Isn't Russia quite closely aligned with Opec though.

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buboard
I can not imagine what will happen in the gulf region if global demand for oil
starts going down.

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kkarakk
i've lived in kuwait as recently as 2017 - there is a general air of despair
over all industry. when the oil prices took their recent nosedive, all
projects were cancelled and the country took a dive into austerity. The
projects were re-started in other forms when the oil prices went up but the
writing on the wall became clear to everyone. lots of educated well off
kuwaitis have purchased homes abroad for "re-settlement",nearby europe being a
popular choice(italy in particular).

i imagine war,chaos and a re-ordering of nation boundaries is going to be the
inevitable result of the decline of oil.

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mc32
If oil is the only resource then why would boundaries get redrawn? Saddam
wanted Kuwait for the oil reserves and not much else.

Many gulf countries rely on foreign labor for “ work locals aren’t willing to
do”. They can drastically cut back on that and reduce the local pop by half or
more in some cases.

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buboard
i believe the boundaries were drawn by the british, hence the straight lines.

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SamReidHughes
Also it's a desert border.

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known
I think Iran and Venezuela should also quit OPEC and sell Oil in non-US
dollars.

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sys_64738
Switch to which currency? Roubles?

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bassman9000
In bitcoin :)

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Silmarilion
Perfect. OPEC cannot control anything already and cannot even coordinate its
own members. It does not make any sense to stay in the organization.

