OilPrice.com

>President Joe Biden is now vowing to "consult with Congress" on ways to "reduce OPEC's control over energy prices,".

>A change in U.S. anti-trust law could revoke immunity that has protected OPEC members against lawsuits.

>The EU idea of forming a buyers cartel to counter high oil prices is getting more support.

The latest OPEC+ output cuts for November mean it's back to the drawing board for the White House and a re-emergence of discussions about the viability of "NOPEC", a Western oil and gas buyers' cartel that may or may not be the answer to influencing the market at will.  The decision on Wednesday by OPEC+ to cut production by 2 million barrels per day at a time when the global economy is grappling with the continued negative impact of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions, is an indication that the cartel is purposefully siding with Russia, and that oil and politics have become decidedly intertwined on a cartel level.  

The current situation is reminiscent of the early days of the Ukraine war when the U.S. and Europe floated the idea of creating an oil and gas buyers’ cartel. 

But the U.S. did more than talk. Back in May, the U.S. The Senate passed the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) bill intended to protect American consumers and businesses from engineered spikes in the cost of gasoline and heating oil, despite some analysts warning that it could also have some dangerous and unintended consequences.

The bill would change U.S. antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has long protected OPEC and its national oil companies from lawsuits, giving the U.S. attorney general the ability to sue the oil cartel or its members in federal court. However, it remains unclear exactly how a U.S. federal court could enforce judicial antitrust decisions against foreign nations, not to mention that other countries could retaliate by taking similar action on the United States, for example for withholding agricultural output to support domestic farming.

Oil Buying Cartel

Earlier in the year, Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, hatched a radical plan to contain the oil price hike. The former European Central Bank president floated the idea of creating a “cartel” of oil consumers at a meeting with Joe Biden in order to increase their bargaining power similar to how the biggest oil-producing nations came together through OPEC to agree annual oil production quotas. 

Related: U.S. Natural Gas Prices Jump To Two-Week High
The two met at the White House on Tuesday in order to coordinate their positions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic fallout from the conflict.