Venezuela's contribution to OPEC: Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso

Chapter 25 of Daniel Yergin's The Prize (New York, 1992) describes the origins of OPEC, in which Venezuela was heavily involved.  According to Yergin, talk about beginning a society of oil-exporting states began in the 1950s, and the Venezuelan Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, had a "catalystic role" in making the organization a reality (509).

Perez Alfonso left Venezuela after being briefly imprisoned after the 1948 coup.  He and his family moved to Washington DC, where he spent much of his time studying the American oil industry in the Library of Congress.  He became very interested in the structure and policies of the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC), an organization that regulated Texan oil production to match changes in demand.  Many of his ideas about OPEC were inspired by the TRC (512).