Oil is one of the most valuable resources that are used to produce energy through its varied number of products. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) includes an association of oil extracting and producing countries and it was formed in 1960. OPEC exports the largest portion of oil consumed globally and with the immense demand for petroleum and oil products, there is a belief that these countries rake in huge revenues.According to the “Who gets what from Imported Oil” brochure, pointing the real benefactors of imported is a subject of misconstruction.
From the information gathered from the World Factbook by computing data from eight OPEC countries, their total population equals to 381,717,013 people with a GDP of $2780.25 billion. This translates to a per capita income of $ 137,295.9313 billion. On the other hand, the G7 countries have a population of 756,739,875 with a GDP of $35.687trillion. This amounts to a per capita income of 21,204,917.05663. These figures show that the oil exporting countries have lesser revenues as compared to the importing countries. This can be attributed to the taxation grid applied for petroleum products in the consuming countries. According to the 2014 OPEC Annual Statistical Bulleting, the estimated average annual OECD oil tax revenues amounts to 1,082 billion dollars against 966 billion dollars average OPEC oil export revenuesfrom 2009-2013. This means that the importing countries received $116 per barrel through taxes against $95 earned as revenue by the exporters.
The highest number of profits land to the importing country as it exonerates the consumer through taxation. Since the consumer has no alternative goods to use in place of petroleum and its products, he or she is forced to cough extra coins which do not reach the initial producer. Therefore, this shows that the importing country’s governments usually earn a lot from oil and not the exporting countries.