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Prix du pétrole et degré de stabilité de l’OPEP
Abstract
The stability of OPEC may be defined as the upholding of a high level of cohesion between the members of this organisation, in order to secure for the whole a certain level of bargaining power that everyone would think to be acceptable at a given time and in a given context. This level of cohesion is mainly estimated by the common will of members to apply rigorously a common strategy regarding the price-quantity of crude petroleum. In the long run, such a strategy would call for a common production plan in order to determine not only the total level of annual production, but also the quotas of each country, the price level and the rate of development of the capacity of production.
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the bringing out of a problematic regarding such a production plan as a whole. The main topics are: (1) the necessity of OPEC, (2) the price determination of petroleum, (3) the question of the instability of a coalition. The analysis accounts for the fact that the petroleum sector produces a non-renewable resource, on the one hand, and for the environment and international constraints that the member countries of OPEC have to face in their development process, on the other hand.
What is the appropriate economic policy for primary commodity producing developing countries given that industrialized countries are specialized in the production of technological progress? Integrating the concept of product life cycle to the static theory of comparative advantage, Harry Johnson has argued that free trade will, by spreading the technology, dissolve the monopoly in technology, and thus constitutes the only policy capable of transmitting growth from one country to another. This article criticizes this thesis on the following points: 1) A rigorous interpretation of the concept of product life cycle and of the underlying assumptions suggests that only industrialized countries present the necessary conditions for the location of the production of exportable technological progress. 2) It follows that the monopoly of the industrialized countries is not temporary but dynamic and self renewing. 3) Free trade, in this case, will only reinforce the negative effects of this monopoly on international specialization and, therefore, reinforce the disparities between industrialized and developing countries. Given the absence of a supranational authority which could intervene against this monopoly, it is appropriate to consider the limits of the bilateral monopoly policy which the developing countries will apply, based on their primary commodities, and the role that OPEC can play in this context.
RÉSUMÉ
L’article présente une synthèse et une tentative d’explication de l’évolution du secteur pétrolier international depuis 1973 en tenant compte du phénomène de l’interdépendance entre les facteurs économiques et les facteurs politiques. Deux points sont privilégiés. Le premier est l’examen des effets des nationalisations (facteur institutionnel) sur le partage de la rente pétrolière et les modifications des structures du marché. Le deuxième point met l’accent, d’une part, sur les comportements économiques et politiques des États-Unis et de l’Arabie Saoudite, et d’autre part, sur le « conflit-coopération » entre les pays de l’OPEP, pour expliquer la détermination et l’évolution des prix.
The traditional theory of exhaustion is revised to allow for long run capital mobility. This model is extended to include the impact of cumulative environmental damages on the optimal path of resource use. Models and optimal markets are then analyzed for cases where minerals are available over a continuum of quality and where recycling ameliorates inevitable exhaustion of non-renewable resources. Finally, the impact of technological change on long run trends in mineral prices is examined.
The study provides an independent basis for understanding the past
behavior of oil prices and for assessing future prospects: the results of the
painstaking assembly and data on the real price of oil in the past and a skillful
analysis of the underlying fundamentals of production and transportation costs
and of industry structure that will affect future prices. The international oil
industry is examined from the economic vantage point with focus on the real price
of crude oil. (MCW)
This paper presents a regional multicommodity economic model of the world oil market. The four sectors of the model are crude production, transportation, refining, and consumption of products. The regions studied are the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia. In the model the exogenous variables include the regional supply and demand equations, the technology of refining, and government policy variables. The scope of these variables gives the model sufficient information to determine the levels of consumption, production, and price for each commodity in each region, the pattern of world trade flows, and the refinery capital structure and output in each region. The consequences of monopolistic behavior -- implemented through the producing country cartel, OPEC -- can be studied through the simulation of the effects of changes in the export tax. Use of this model shows that the price increases for crude oil which occurred in late 1973 are not likely to persist because the largest producing region -- the Persian Gulf and North Africa -- would have the problem of allocating reduced production levels among the individual countries.
Following the IPCC's report (2005), which recommended the development and the use of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies in order to achieve the environmental goals, dened by the Kyoto Protocol, the issue addressed in this paper concerns the optimal strategy regarding the long-term use of CCS technologies. The aim of this paper is to study the optimal carbon capture and sequestration policy. The CCS technologies has motivated a number of empirical studies, via complex integrated assessment models. This literature always considers that the existing technology allows sequestrating a fraction of the carbon emissions and concludes that the early introduction of sequestration can lead to a substantial decrease in the cost of environmental externality. But, the level of complexity of such operational models, aimed at defining some specific climate policies. We develop a very simple growth model so as to obtain analytical and tractable results and therefore exhibit the main driving forces that should determine the optimal CSS policy. We show within on the cost of extractions, CSS may be a long-term solution for the carbon emissions problem. Besides, it is also shown that the social planner will optimally choose to decrease the rate of capture and sequestration. Besides, we also introduce the decentralization of this simple economy, by considering the individual program of the fossil resource-holder and the one of the representative consumer. This helps us to compute analytically the optimal environmental policy, that is the also the optimal fossil fuel price profile.
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