00:00A fresh blow to OPEC. Venezuela, this is our scoop, of course, might be considering leaving the OPEC cartel.
00:06Where does that leave the group and where does that leave its importance more specifically?
00:14You know, they continue to shed members. Famously, just a few months back, the UAE also left OPEC.
00:22So Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of this group, is losing more and more supply.
00:28And as they lose members for different reasons, their importance will, of course, wane.
00:35Already there have been questions about the importance of OPEC and OPEC+, which is the allegiance between those producers
00:42and Russia,
00:44especially with the rise in U.S. shale oil.
00:48You saw in the aftermath of the Middle East crisis and the drop in flows in March and April,
00:55you saw a big increase in U.S. oil and product exports helping to kind of make up some of
01:01that gap.
01:01And as OPEC+, is gearing back to a market with Hormuz eventually reopening, if they have less members and
01:13less might,
01:13their ability to kind of push the market in certain directions will certainly be diminished.
01:20And this is very important for Saudi Arabia because they need to come back into marketing and resume getting customers
01:28as well.
01:28So they're looking at drastically increasing their production and whether they're able to get other members to do so,
01:37whether they're able to dictate the caps for other members, including Iraq and others.
01:43It will be in larger question.
01:46I think one thing to take note of, though, is that we are seeing this set up between OPEC and
01:52the United States,
01:53the U.S. being such a large producer of oil and gas, thanks to the shale boom,
01:58but also now with potentially taking a stake in Venezuela, that influence appears to be increasing.
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