The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was established in September 1960 by Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait. Other countries which qualified for membership and joined later were Qatar (1961), Indonesia and Libya (1962), Abu Dhabi (1967, later transferred to the United Arab Emirates, 1974), Algeria (1969), Nigeria (1971), Ecuador (1973), Gabon (1975), and Angola (2007). Ecuador withdrew in 1992 (rejoining in 2007), Gabon withdrew in 1995 (rejoining in 2016), and Indonesia withdrew in 2009, rejoined in 2015 and withdrew in 2016. Qatar left in 2019. The San Francisco Bay Area-based collective, Retort, argues that since the 1960s relatively high oil prices have benefited both the oil majors and military contractors and manufacturers, construction companies, engineering and industrial design firms, and the banking and finance sectors as OPEC states recycled and spent their abundant petro-dollars. Watts (2005) PHG 29, 360 writes that the removal of Saddam Hussein ‘obliterated at a stroke one of the most assertive voices for an aggressive OPEC price policy, and set the stage for clipping the wings of another; Hugo Chavez’. See Bridge (2008) J. Econ. Geog. 8, 3.