At a certain critical point, the nation will shift en masse toward hybrids, and we'll see OPEC's power to increase prices negated, at least until the whole nation is hybridized.
Few seem to know or understand that OPEC does not have very much control any more over the oil markets. In fact, OPEC has had little to do with the current market gyrations in oil as well as the overall trend of a rising price for crude. Other geopolitical events have played a much bigger role.
Furthermore, of all the OPEC nations, it is believed only the Saudis have the ability to effect OPEC production quotas and even that is suspect. For the past two years, OPEC repeatedly has made announcements claiming they were planning to increase production or to decrease production depending on what the price of crude was doing, and every time, as far as anyone can tell, there has been little or no change in OPEC production levels. At first, it was believed that some of the OPEC nations were playing games.....offsetting whatever increase or decrease the Saudis were doing. However, now, its believed that production wise, OPEC nations are pretty much tapped out.........and are trying to reap as much financial benefit as possible from the current high prices before they go back down........if they ever do.
ted |
