OPEC made some bullish announcements this week, which lifted the price of Crude Oil. Even so, experience suggests that OPEC will have little ability to manage Oil prices going forward; it’s members are too dependent on Oil revenues to cut output significantly for any length of time. In addition, many are in desperate economic positions, so it’s unlikely that any OPEC members will restrain production. They have consistently demonstrated that they are incapable of taking short term pain (by cutting production) to achieve higher prices over the long term.