The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, is a real life organization formed in 1960, and whose purpose is to coordinate and stabilize the crude oil market. It's current members are: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.[1]
It features in Norman Boutin's Empress Theresa as an antagonistic organization, especially during its conflict with Israel. In the book, it is run by Secretary General Khaled bin Azad.
Role in the Story[]
Though OPEC is not a monopoly by the time of the story, it is still an important organization for Europe and many other countries.[2] Growing jealous of Theresa's power and influence over the world, they plan to make Theresa "cave in" and turn her into a slave.[3] In response, Theresa plans to bring "lots of carbon" from the sun to "generate electricity at very low cost," and make certain everyone switches to electric cars.[4] Because of the time it will take to transition to everyone using electric cars, and the danger of OPEC generating high gas prices before then, Theresa plans to raise the oil rich floor of the Caribbean Sea.[5]
After a secret meeting, bin Azad publicly demands that Theresa put "ten billion dollars every month into a fund for the world's poor," and that Israeli territory be returned into Muslim hands.[6]
In response, Theresa plans to "raise a large area of the ocean floor between Antarctica and Africa," which has "trillions of barrels of oil," all of which will belong to Theresa, and which she will sell to the world market for $20 a barrel.[7] She likewise plans to evacuate Israel by "raising a land bridge from Israel to Crete," after which "they can move to Europe from there at their own pace."[8]
OPEC holds another secret meeting, but soon disperses without a public statement. It is leaked that the members feared that "if they started an embargo there would be a mad rush on the part of every oil company in the world to get their drilling equipment to [Theresa's] island." If there turned out to be a lot of oil there, Theresa could drop the price of oil to $10 a barrel and OPEC would be out of business.[9]
Later, a Saudi Arabian representative of OPEC meets with Theresa, and suggests that Theresa's new oil island be administered by a group of nations, in exchange for canceling the donations to the world poor fund, as well as the possibility of dropping the annexation of Israel.[10]
WIP