مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد اوپک و امنیت جهانی نفت (الزویر)

Recent declines in the price of oil are thought to fall the hardest on the highest cost oil sources of world oil consumption—such as Canadian tar sands and U.S. shale oil. Because these sources of oil supply are thought to be politically stable, analysts have expressed concern that lower oil prices will gradually reduce the security of world oil supply. Along these lines, we typically think of the highest cost producers as supplying the marginal barrels of world oil consumption— with the marginal barrels referring to the barrels of oil whose production is reduced or increased when demand falls or rises. The sources of the marginal barrels of oil can be important to policy because these sources of oil production most readily respond to changes in demand brought about by changes in policy. Perhaps contrary to expectations, OPEC’s low and relatively constant costs put it in a position where it can make an important contribution to the marginal barrel of world oil production through its exercise of market power.1 To the extent that OPEC restrains its production to sustain higher world oil prices, it lessens its share of world oil production relative to competitive conditions. At the same time, OPEC’s exercise of market power puts it in a position to contribute a significant portion of the marginal barrel of oil. That is, when confronted with a change in world oil demand, OPEC’s exercise of market power provides it with the incentive to change its output— perhaps by more than non-OPEC producers. Because OPEC members are also among the more unstable suppliers, OPEC’s dominance in producing the marginal barrel of oil has important implications for world oil market security. Adelman (2004) suggested that these two seemingly disparate strands of inquiry need to be combined. Nonetheless, to our knowledge, the confluence of these issues has not been well examined or understood in the context of energy security. We find it worthwhile to examine both how OPEC’s cost structure and behavior affects its contribution to the marginal barrel of oil, and to assess whether OPEC members have been among the unstable producers. Our inquiry has important implications for energy policy. In assessing the security of world oil supply, we are concerned with two related issues: 1) Which countries produce the marginal barrels of oil; and 2) Are the countries supplying the marginal barrels stable or unstable oil producers? The security of world oil supply and the effectiveness of policies to increase world oil security depend on the answers to these two questions. Policies to increase oil production in stable areas of the world or to reduce world oil consumption will be more effective at enhancing world oil security if they also reduce the production of unstable sources of oil production.