NPR.

The global oil market is on edge.

Prices for crude have been bouncing around for the past week, hitting $110 a barrel,

and all of this has investors, analysts, and politicians repeating the same two syllables.

Oh, peck.

OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

And its estimated OPEC accounts for more than half of internationally traded crude oil.

That makes it basically one of the world's most powerful members only clubs.

And inside this metaphorical clubhouse, you'll see 13 member countries, including Iraq,

Venezuela, Kuwait, countries that produce a ton of oil.

And swatering around, holding court among them all, Saudi Arabia.

Rafik Latak covers the Middle East for an industry publication called Energy Intelligence.

And he describes the Saudis role this way.

It's a little bit like herding cats.

You know, everyone's got their own agenda, everyone wants to do their thing.

You need someone to kind of get them all together, sing from the same song sheet, agree

on something.

But Rafik's colleague, Amenabbaka, has a slightly different analogy for their dynamics within

OPEC.

I mean, they're kind of like a dysfunctional family.

I remember a conversation I had with Yomani, an energy minister.

And he said, yeah, we are a dysfunctional family, but we stay in this family because of the

...