[marron]

For example, while the Energy Ministry is claiming that Venezuela will not raise oil production in the second semester 2002 ... Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega said recently that the government would hike oil output by some 400,000 barrels per day to cover a fiscal deficit estimated at more than 8 percent of GDP.

This is how it works, and this is why OPEC is already irrelevant. OPEC as a group decrees cuts in production, while beneath the surface all of them are paddling like crazy, straining to increase production.

Temporary shutdowns for maintenance purposes are masked as cuts in production, which are forgotten as soon as the equipment is ready to go back on line.

OPEC is finished. The largest new fields are in non-OPEC countries, and the OPEC countries are mostly bankrupt and are unable to affect the market. Every barrel they refuse to pump is a barrel immediately replaced by Russian, or Mexican, or Azeri oil, and they know it.

[madvlad]

Don't forget...fuel cell technology is advancing.
And OPEC knows that as well.

Mad Vlad