Perhaps it is also relevant to acknowledge that most of the oil...

Perhaps it is also relevant to acknowledge that most of the oil producers are volatile politically and have had a common denominator in the instability namely the USA.

The USA is the only free market economy that is so dependent on oil and that has a vested interest in the price of oil (its investment) a it has a direct correlation to resultant beligerence (wars) in which it also eventually from historical evidence been a major instigator and participant.

As long as the demand and supply patterns of this commodity remain inelastic the profits and returns from investment in it remain disproportionately high and attractive where a participant has control over the behaviour of its supply and demand. The Russians are certainly not an indolent observer and neither are the French. Algeria and the Russian client states are also known to be equally manipulated for the same reasons.

The irony if ever there as one, is that both Russia and the US have larger oil supplies o their own than the individual members of OPEC