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The "New Seven Sisters" Since the original "Seven Sisters" prominence in the 1970s, due to financial regulation and new mandates the oil industry as a whole, it has become harder for private companies to hold as much power as they once did. The Financial Times has coined the term the "New Seven Sisters" to describe a group of what it argues are the most-influential national oil and gas companies based in countries outside of the OECD[10][1] The OECD is a coalition of 34 countries, mostly powerful and well developed nations, that work together to foster economic prosperity and ultimately stimulate world trade. Although the OECD was founded in 1961, it was not fully developed enough to make sure that particular companies did not hold too much power over an industry. While OECD and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continuously attempt to ensure that no one country or company holds too much power, the oil industry inherently carries a great amount of weight in not only the economy, but in politics and environmental issues (see environmental policies of the original Seven Sisters below)[11].

Today in the global economy, many of the most powerful companies are included (and sometimes mandated) by the OECD. However, the seven most powerful companies outside the OECD are: Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia), China National Petroleum Corporation (China), Gazprom (Russia), National Iranian Oil Company (Iran), Petrobras (Brazil), PDVSA (Venezuela), and Petronas (Malaysia). Some of these companies might seem obvious, granted that the top 3 oil producing countries in the world are the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia (in that order). The ranking of the 7 biggest companies are based upon "resource base, level of output, company's ambition, scale of their domestic market, and influence in the industry."[12]

The "New Seven Sisters," while heavily controlled by their respective countries, control over one-third of the world's oil and gas production and more than one-third of the world's oil and gas reserves. This contrasts with the fact that the original "Seven Sisters" only controlled 10 percent of the world's oil and gas production and 3 percent of the worlds oil and gas reserves. However, production levels are not truly the source of what made the Seven Sisters so powerful. In the oil industry, the ability to control policy is king. The "New Seven Sisters," while not explicitly mentioned in the news as the Seven Sisters, have been heavily involved in the news recently, given the recent crash of oil prices. The recent fall in oil prices have caused these companies to regress their expansion and with a cyclical industry such as oil, it is hard to predict when oil prices will rebound and allow these companies to further their expansion processes. To give an example, in 2002, there was a massive surge in oil prices and this ultimately allowed Saudi Aramco to become a leader in global oil production, ramping up its daily oil production from 11 million barrels to 15 million barrels [13].

There is a certain sense of cocmoradery in the oil business [14]. Since the 1970s, oil companies have worked together in order to improve each other's business models and serve their economic agendas. This could potentially have detrimental effects for the economy and the world in general over in the foreseeable future. For example, Fatih Birol, the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency says "the world is falling 20 per cent short of making the $20,000bn investment needed to ensure adequate energy supplies for the next 25 years." Ultimately, there are many conflicting viewpoints as to what should be done about the cronyism in the oil industry [15]. Some advocate for legislation that would make oil companies smaller and thus less powerful, while other say that this would make matters even worse from an environmental standpoint. This is where oil has become extremely political. Many leaders in the OECD are worried about Russia and Venezuela's control of global oil reserves given the governmental controversy in each country. A few years ago, many publications described oil companies as having "bottomless piggybanks." One in particular was Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. Hugo Chavez the former leader of Venezuela would allegedly use about two-thirds of PDVSA's profits to fund his own political agenda. This had repercussions on the company, sending its production levels into the ground[16]. Normally, this would seem like an issue that would not really be noticed by the global population. However, news like this, especially today has the ability to send global financial markets into disarray. At the end of last year, markets experienced extremely high volatility levels because no one knew what OPEC or companies were doing in regards to oil production forecasts. Since markets tend to act irrationally, an incident such as the one mentioned above could have grave ripple effects for financial markets.

When the government has too much involvement in private sector oil production and reservation, it becomes dangerous for citizens around the world. While this may not be an issue in the United States, in emerging market countries it can become dangerous given the leadership. Governmental leaders in the United States and the European Union are worried about Russia's increasing reliance on oil and Vladimir Putin's power and political agenda. This will continue to be a subject for discussion, especially after this past years oil crisis. The good news is that now the United States has become much more self-sufficient with oil production, allowing for a better balance of "oil power." This will make it so the United States and the global economy as a whole cannot fall into a similar situation such as the 1973 oil crisis -- the Arab oil embargo.