AS YOU READ THIS, OPEC, the cartel of most of the world's oil producers, is meeting in Vienna. No, they will not observe a moment of silence in honor of those who died at the hands of Saudi terrorists some six years ago today. Instead, they will go over some data in a show of empiricism, and then refuse the urgent request of world's consuming countries to open the spigots so as to bring oil prices down. "You cannot convince any member to add more crude to the market," OPEC secretary-general Abdalla el-Badri told the press. Mahammed al-Hamli, the United Arab Emirates oil minister and OPEC's president, agrees, "I think the market is very well balanced. There is no shortage whatsoever of oil supplies."

OPEC includes several countries that simply cannot increase production, even if they wanted to. Those are the price hawks--they see no advantage in a decision to increase supplies of crude. Venezuela is one such country: its production is sinking as Hugo Chávez replaces Petróleos de Venezuela's highly regarded technocrats with political hacks. So he wants more for each barrel he produces, especially if high prices threaten U.S. prosperity. Iran, also suffering from falling output as the U.S. embargo denies the country the know-how and equipment needed to update facilities, is also a price hawk.

Then there is the key player, Saudi Arabia, a country quite capable of increasing output, especially if it would allow foreign countries to explore the vast areas of the country that have yet to

Best of all, OPEC now knows that it can count on Vladimir Putin to help it in two ways, one intentional, the other unintentional. Putin will cooperate with OPEC because high oil prices make it easier for him both to provide Russia's people with butter and his military with guns. He has decided that it is to his political advantage to make missile muscles, and to send his warplanes to places where they are intended to provoke a response from the United States and the UK.

He is also inadvertently helping to maintain prices by allowing Russia's oil output to fall as his former KGB and other cronies--the siloviki--take over the country's oil companies, and reduce foreigners to minor roles in which they have little say over how the nation's resources are exploited. As the Economist pointed out, KGB-trained thugs "know how to grab assets and jail foes, but not how to run real businesses."

In short, there is little likelihood that any of the major producers will permit the foreign investment they need to step up production sufficiently to make a significant dent in the current price of oil. The Saudi royal family doesn't want to antagonize their bin-Ladenites by inviting American investment in, although it relies on American technicians to keep its oil flowing and on the American military to keep it in power. Mexico won't allow American capital in, but wants to ship unlimited numbers of its jobless workers out to the United States, rather than remove impediments to its own economic development. The Bush administration acquiesces. In the case of the Saudis, the Bush family and the royal family have long had close relations, and the president thinks he needs the Saudis as potential allies against Iran. So he is disinclined to tell them that unless they produce more oil, America will withdraw its military protection. As for Mexico, Bush has never linked immigration and energy policy, thereby forfeiting an important lever he has in negotiations over how to control the flow of illegals across the U.S. border.