Algeria also joined Iran and Venezuela. That's just about it.
BTW, will Ecuador and Sudan be joining OPEC? What about Russia?
> and if the Chavez and Ahmadinejad
> governments believe that the Saudis are manipulating the price for political
> reasons, they haven't made it known.
The Saudi oil production plan, as well as the Saudi political view of Iran, is being discussed all over the place. They would have to be really deaf not to have heard it. There isn't any quick response that either or both can come up with, though.
> The conventional wisdom, of course, is
> that falling demand is to blame, as reflected in this WSJ piece last week,
> reporting on the first drop in oil consumption in the OECD countries in two
> decades.
There are lots of factors, from unseasonably warm weather (due in part to climate change) to rates of economic growth, many of which are beyond the control of oil producers. The issue is what the Saudi ruling class are doing with the part they do control, their own oil reserves.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>