LONDON The current merger frenzy among the world's top listed oil companies is good news for consumers as it checks OPEC's influence, wrote the weekly Economist Saturday.
The "most compelling reason" in not to "worrying" about the formation of what it called super-major' oil companies is that "petroleum is probably the only global business in which the industry's largest firms and best assets are controlled by governments".
The mergers help to "increase competition upstream" and may even be good news for consumers because "it will help check the power of the true threat to consumers", which it defined as being "OPEC".
The Economist suggested that the discovery of oil in the North Sea played an important role in "checking the excesses of OPEC's power," in the past.
As for the future, with the rise of super-majors, it argued that the odds of finding other non-OPEC sources is increased and that this "will help keep the cartel's power in check".
The editorial follows an upbeat assessment of OPEC's future by Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Research, saying that the organization "old rhetoric" has been "cast to one side".
OPEC members appeared to put past differences behind them and the organization had "retained its unity of purpose in the face of rising prices," it said.
"It would be unwise to bet against OPEC failing to cut output when the time comes to shore up oil prices", concluded the London-based analysts.
(IRNA)