They are a drag on world growth, they lead to increased production in non-cartel nations, and sustained high oil prices lead to a lot of conservation.
Such a flood of non-cartel oil makes it harder for the Saudis to manage prices, and may partly explain this week's cut.China's emergence as a large but unreliable consumer of oil may be another factor.
High prices have already inspired the development of 2.6m barrels per day (bpd) of non-cartel oil, besides investment in projects that promise to deliver another 5.2m bpd from alternative sources by 2008.
Prices have recently plunged to below $17 a barrel as an anaemic world economy and a stand-off between OPEC and Russia, the biggest non-cartel exporter, pushed the oil market to the brink of short-term collapse.Only Osama bin Laden, it seems, can give you a fixed price for a barrel of oil.
"We have entered a new chapter in the history of the oil market, which is now starting to operate like any non-cartel commodity market," says Stuart Elliott at energy specialist Platts.
In the case of oil, the cartel also has to deal with many non-cartel producers, all of whom will not even pretend to restrict production and instead will pump furiously if the price rises.
What a boon environment for a "non-profit" cartel flush with billions that socializes the debts for new stadiums by plundering municipalities and then privatizing the profits, that threatens to lockout the laborers who give the sport its only reason for existence when they ask for a fraction more money to continue at jobs that give them potentially terminal brain damage.
Hopes that members in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel and non-Opec oil suppliers, mostly notably Russia, may agree to freeze production pushed crude oil prices to their highest levels this year ahead of a meeting between the two groups.
Cartel members and non-OPEC countries are developing new wells as fast as possible to take advantage of the high oil prices.
Novak promised for the first time to curb production by 300,000 barrels, half of the desired non-OPEC total, if the cartel could iron out its own production cuts.
Big Oil has never been much loved, but since OPEC's rise in the 1970s the majors have actually been the consumer's best friend, because their success at developing non-OPEC oil has restrained the cartel's market power.
