US Congressman Advances an Idea of North American Analogue to OPEC

North America’s oil-producing countries should form a continental body that would compete with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), US congressman Pete Olson told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Olson, a Republican who has represented part of the state of Texas in Congress since 2009, said that the bloc of oil-exporting countries consisting of the United States, Canada and Mexico could provide “a little global competition” for the 13-nation OPEC cartel.

“How about this idea called NAPEC, the North American Petroleum Exporting Countries?” Olson said Thursday.

Asked if the United States should cooperate with OPEC, Olson said, “There should be cooperation, but as friends as opposed to what OPEC does to us now.”

In 2015, the United States became a net energy exporter for the first time since the 1950s, largely as a result of new technologies such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as well as discoveries of new oil and gas deposits.

The decline in energy prices in recent years has led to more than 150,000 job losses in the US energy sector and a nearly 80 percent drop in the number of active oil rigs since October 2014.

OPEC members collectively control about 40 percent of the world's oil output.