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(Bloomberg) OPEC’s meetings in Vienna have for decades offered a heady mix of wealth, power and intrigue. The latest one may feel more like a wake.

The closest OPEC came to operating like a true oil cartel was in the early 1970s. Back then, it controlled more than half the world’s oil supply and was more or less aligned in trying to manage pricing and, for many members, throwing off the remnants of colonialism.

These days, OPEC accounts for about 40 percent of oil supplies, and it is divided on multiple fronts, be it the vast economic gulf between the haves of the Gulf States and the have-nots of Venezuela or the enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran .