what countries are members of opec 
according to its statutes opec membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and shares the ideals of the organization after the five founding members opec grew by 11 additional member countries as of 2019 they are in order of joining as follows 25ecuador withdrew from the organization on jan 1 2020 qatar terminated its membership on jan 1 2019 and indonesia suspended its membership on nov 30 2016 thus as of 2022 the organization consists of 13 states the bottom linethe importance of crude oil cannot be overstated it is a major source of energy generating heat and powering various types of vehicles and machinery it is also used as a component in many of the products that we use every day including plastics paints and cosmetics concerns about the damage it does to the environment mean crude oil isn t favorable to everyone however most agree that we currently cannot live without it and that no longer extracting and refining crude oil would lead the global economy to grind to a halt 