h allowed them to make all of the major decisions concerning the exploitation of the resources.
The five founding members of OPEC, therefore, found themselves in a classical dependency relationship with the powerful multinational oil companies that held a virtual stranglehold on the crude oil resources in the five countries. The catalyst for the five countries to form OPEC was a decision by the seven multinational oil companies in 1960 to lower the so-called posted price for crude oil. The posted price was the price that each of the seven oil companies would pay the host nations for the crude oil extracted from their resources. The five nations had no say in establishing this price. In effect, the "Seven Sisters" themselves acted as a cartel. By establishing their own cartel, the founding five OPEC nations were demonstrating their resolve to gain control over their own crude oil resource.
As an organization, OPEC's original structure included the Secretariat, a Board of Governors, and a Co
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