OPEC's new president, then the cartel will cut production by 500, 000 barrels a day.
There is also the question of whether the cartel will stick to whatever agreement it reaches.
The protection against this gloomy prognosis is the cartel office, which is fast establishing pro-competition credentials.
If the cartel office stays alert, Germany' electrical storm will rage for some time yet.
The cartel was created to stablize oil prices when there was a glut of supply.
In the American system the cartel, not competition, controls who is in the Big Leagues.
But the more parties to the cartel agreement, the harder to define, police and enforce it.
But the cartel is equally reluctant to admit that it has lost control of prices.
The government is still making a few feeble nods in the direction of the cartel.
At the cartel's most recent meeting, in Vienna last week, ministers tried to soothe such fears.
When high oil prices push consuming economies into recession, it is the cartel itself that suffers most.
Members of OPEC, the cartel of oil rich nations are in Venezuela for a one day meeting.
While cheating will remain a problem within the cartel, few members want to disregard its rules entirely.
The cartel had earlier been fined in America, and several executives have served time in American prisons.
Even these smaller shareholdings are unwelcome, says the cartel office, but that is the best it can do.
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Although the cartel was one of the monopolies ordered abolished under the second IMF agreement, Hasan is unrepentant.
Few were surprised when it cast aside the arguments of both the Cartel Office and the Monopolies Commission.
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The cartel can rapidly add to supplies or remove them from global markets, sending prices up or down.
With production capacity for high-quality, low-sulfur crude offline in Libya, Yemen and Sudan, the cartel is unable to compensate.
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Three of his doctors were charged with killing the cartel leader with an overdose of anesthetic during his surgery.
Analysts expect more debate between now and the March 16 meeting before the cartel comes up with a consensus.
If prices fall in coming weeks in response to the cartel's production increase, might not some other countries agree?
Worse still, it is extremely unlikely that the cartel can actually deliver the stability that everybody seems to crave.
Security spokesman Alejandro Poire said there would be no truce with the cartel, which he said was "in retreat".
Those big inventories encouraged by the cartel have been processed by refiners, who have been enjoying high profit margins.
After deciding which firm ought to win a particular contract, other members of the cartel would pitch artificially high bids.
She got rid of the cartel of building societies that had rationed the supply of credit to house-buyers in Britain.
Rebecca McCaughrin of Morgan Stanley, who has analysed the recent windfall, believes that the cartel is even shunning American goods.
ECONOMIST: What might oil producers do with all that extra cash?
One reason is that the cartel's members are not cheating as outrageously as they often used to on their quotas.
The movie's great surprise, and delight, is Salma Hayek's Elena, a svelte monster with a Cleopatra haircut who runs the cartel.
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