From 2003 to 2008, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) maintained hardly any spare production capacity, making it difficult for the organization to impact prices one way or another. But, in the past three years, OPEC has regained some of its pricing power. The spare capacity is not and has never been evenly distributed throughout the cartel. At times, more than 90 percent of OPEC's spare capacity has resided within a single member — Saudi Arabia. Even today, when the organization's spare capacity is more distributed than it has been in a decade, Riyadh is still responsible for two-thirds of the total spare capacity. In contrast, Venezuela and Iran have traditionally maintained some the smallest spare capacities in the organization. These two countries currently have what is one of their largest spare capacities in history — roughly 350,000 barrels per day between them. Saudi Arabia has 2.25 million barrels per day.
