The Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries, otherwise known as OPEC, will meet this week to determine whether the group will curb production. High Plains oil producers are watching anxiously, in hopes OPEC will ramp down production.
Such a move would likely send worldwide oil prices higher and increase profits on the High Plains—while also raising gas prices for consumers.
OPEC supplies roughly 40 percent of the world’s crude. Two years ago OPEC decided to fight for market share through ultra-low prices. To achieve this end, the group triggered a worldwide price collapse by adopting a pump-at-will policy.
Now, as Bloomberg reports,prices have fallen so low that OPEC wants to bring them back up into a “Goldilocks Zone” of between $50 and $60 a barrel. That’s “high enough to increase revenue . . . but not too high to trigger a wave of new output from the U.S. shale patch,” said Walid Khadduri, an OPEC expert.