Opec Essay

OPEC is not the only corporation to deal with the oil market. OPEC has a lot of competitors. According to Dr. Wolfe competitors are firms operating in the same market, offering similar products and targeting similar customers. OPEC leading countries include: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, IR Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. They are mainly in the Middle East and North Africa region, with some outside of the Middle East as well. Eight out of the twelve OPEC countries are the in the top ten oil reserves countries; therefore OPEC has an upper hand on the world oil reserves (Top Ten Oil Reserves Countries, 2016). OPEC faces challenges with their competitors just like every other country does.

Technological factors include the huge investment in research for comparable energy such as oil. According to Garrett Hering “In 1973 diesel and other petroleum-based fuels accounted for 25% of the global power compared to now only accounting for 5%. With technology constantly advancing the need for gas and oil are declining. For transportation use it’s still the global leader accounting for 92% of the market with ethanol and biodiesel at 5%, natural gas 3%, and electricity less than 1%. This is where the greatest need for gasoline and oil still exists, and technological advances are still happening for oil drilling for increases in efficiency. In the article “Top 5 Innovations in oil Drilling” it discusses how advancement in oil drilling is still evolving with the new technological advancements. First it discusses the first advancement was drilling beneath the seafloor. One of the technologies created for this are the remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, which the military was already using to retrieve lost equipment underwater. Controlling these ROV above the water’s surface allows operators to see underwater. Some types allow the operator to make an ROV’s robotic arms perform different functions according to Jane Mcgrath. One of most important technological innovations in oil exploration was the 3-D seismic imaging, which is a great tech for tracking where oil is located. Jane Mcgrath says “This relies on the idea that sound bounces off and travels through different materials in slightly different ways. In this process, an energy source such as a vibrator truck sends sound waves deep into the earth. Special devices called geophones are positioned on the surface, which receive the sounds that bounce back up and send the information to recorder trucks.” We can study these recorded sound waves to interpret what kinds of rock lay in certain