@The Badger

"Vladimir Plouzhnikov: "You describe a cartel"

Funny that: what do you think OPEC is?"

Yes, it is a cartel... to be precise, a joke of a cartel. Their influence on price is minimal, as the recent history of price movements clearly shows. OPEC consists of member-states who never really can agree on anything, hence, the constant "cheating" where members exporting much more oil then they are supposed to. Besides, OPEC is not the only source of oil in the world.

The actual price discovery in the oil markets currently happens in WTI and Brent futures.