OPEC OK with Low Oil Prices: Raises Barrier for Alternative Fuels"

[Elmore Furth]

One calculation is that gas costs us $15 per gallon if you take in all the subsidies from military spending, environmental damage and health care from pollution. But water is also subsidized and the utility rate is not the true cost of water in the US. Bread and circuses for the populus has worked in the past.

OPEC is more concerned about long-term market share than they are about short-term price gains. Therefore with lower oil prices, what you're actually doing is raising the entry barrier for alternative fuels. I speak with OPEC regularly, and this is consistently their main concern is about the political shift of the sentiment in the U.S. especially towards alternative fuels. The cheaper you make OPEC oil, the harder you make it to bring alternative fuels to bring on. So no, I don't think OPEC is that concerned.


OPEC and Low Oil Prices, "Raising the entry barrier for alternative fuels"