 We prefer to sell oil to get money to build school.  Countries that fall into this is Nigeria. They have a huge population but not fully industrialized compared to other places.  Most other countries in Africa usually export this. They don’t have a lot population or local demand and prefer to have cash in hand.  Places like south Sudan, Angola; pull our of ground and sell it.  Venezuela falls here too. Major part of economy and closer to being industrialized and raising population but they are in economic turmoil so they just sell it. Most central Asian states fall in here; Uzbekistan, kazhkistan. They got it and sell it for money.  Mexico falls into this country – pretty industrialized and closing in it standard of living of US. Mexico has a lot of off shore oil in gulf and also need it for government budget. some of these countries in the second category of countries of exporters really heavily and seriously rely on oil revenue. Whether they have in country demand, they are going to export as much as they can.  Venezuela: oil is 95% of export earnings. Its 25% of their GDP.  Nigeria: 90% of export earnings, 35% of GDP.  Libya: 95% of export earnings, 50% of GDP.  Angola: 45% of GDP  Algeria: 75% of their GDP.  Saudi Arabia: roughly 93% of budget revenues. 93% of operating budget of government is petroleum. For a government to do anything, all of it comes from petroleum. Its 90% of export earnings and 55% of GDP.  Iran: 80% of export earnings and 20% of GDP  Iraq 75% of GDP.  A lot of middle eastern countries not only have huge proven reserves, and not only make top 10 production, but top 10 or 20 exports and heavily rely on oil exports to make money. Primary source of revenue.  Its so important to these countries, they formed an oil club

 OPEC – organization of the petroleum exporting countries. Not all are from Middle East. 38:00  Just looking at these countries, a whole lot of these folks are in middle east and top 10-20-30 exporter  38:22.  They are all in top 30 exporting countries in earth. Most was in top 10. About half of top 10 producers and exporters are OPEC members. Makes sense since we pointed out that middle east itself has half of oil reveres, oil production, and exports half the oil.  OPEC coming together in cartel/conglomerate on half of world oil market. They essentially control price of petroleum period. This trickles on to me when I pay at the pump when I fuel my hummer for joy riding. OPEC pretty much, just slightly influences the price.  Who is the OPEC group? It is just Middle Eastern countries since they have a ll the stuff? No. Other places are part of this org.  Since they have so much oil in these places and most members are from Middle East, we can assume that Middle East and OPEC countries have always controlled everything about oil. Right?  They have not always controlled it. Crucial changes have occurred in the last 50 years and changes within the oil world has changed and radically affected economic and politics in middle east and multi- national corporations around the world. 