That set off fears in Europe and the U.S. that Russia was trying to form a gas version of OPEC to extract tribute from EUropean consumers.

FORBES: Devil's Advocate

And then there was Richard Nixon mandating a national 55-mph speed limit to help conserve gas in response to the OPEC oil embargo, which served to make everyone at the time driving a big V8-powered car grumpy (and subsequently helped reduce traffic fatalities).

FORBES: Executive Power Steering: How U.S. Presidents Altered The Course Of The Auto Industry

They had all the new facts about worldwide gas prices, the existence of OPEC, the wonders of European mass transit, and all the great little cars from Europe and Japan.

FORBES: Remember: Comedy is Easy, Change is Hard

Meanwhile, outside Opec, Russia's oil and gas bonanza has underwritten efforts by President Vladimir Putin to centralise and even renationalise the country's energy sector.

BBC: Oil refinery in Colombia

In real terms, gas costs 51% less than it did at the height of OPEC power in 1980.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

But even more pertinent is the huge variation in their national interests, between those such as low-lying small islands that may literally cease to exist as nations as the sea level rises, and the oil-producing states of the Persian Gulf and Opec for whom the priority is to keep the oil and gas flowing.

BBC: Climate: Fractures in the lobby?

Bandar said much the same thing on April 1, after he met with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice at the White House amid concerns that OPEC production cuts might further push up the price of oil, with U.S. gas prices already at record levels.

CNN: Woodward, White House, Saudis: No election deal on oil