The Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental organisation (Mouawad 2010). It was created on September 14 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq. It has twelve members. The main objective for this organisation is to unify and coordinate petroleum policies among the member countries. As Mills (2008) explains, OPEC has other various roles that it ranging from technology, price control, economic growth and empowerment, ensuring stability in oil revenue for its member states and importantly, to provide a reliable, regular, economical and efficient supply of oil and oil products to consuming countries. OPEC also seeks to ensure and maintain stable and return to investors in the oil industry. It carries out this functions and role through establishment of oil policies for its member countries. The mandate of OPEC is centered on aforementioned roles.
These roles and functions were before the United States and the United Kingdom had started producing their own shale oil and gas. Now that the US and the UK have found and are producing shale oil and gas, OPEC’s roles are bound to change. A gas and oil boom in the US and the United Kingdom has led to digital ink, (Barnes & Jaffe 2006). The UK and the USA are leading world consumers of petroleum products; they import many barrels of petroleum products from OPEC. This is bound to change because of existence and production of shale oil and gas by the US and the UK as Arvanitopoulos (2010) asserts.
This is because, first, the US and the UK are the most consumers of oil and gas in the whole world. Whether they were purchasing oil and gas from OPEC or non-OPEC countries, the move by the US and the UK to produce their own oil and gas will affect OPEC and other countries producing oil and gas. The US and the UK will represent two big markets for oil and gas. As such, OPEC will have to change their roles in order to accommodate the change. Second, OPEC was the biggest supplier of oil and