Their goal was to ensure a stable oil supply and market prices commensurate with the needs of producing countries and host nations despite the sheer dominance of the Seven Sisters, a consortium of seven multinational oil companies.
The obituary of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), born in 1960, has been written many times, notably by Western journalists and analysts. Every time its demise was predicted, Opec not only survived but grew stronger.
The West despised Opec. What the five original members — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela — did was to set up an organisation to coordinate production policy.
