[aboyeji]

This will really suck for these countries. As someone who lives in an oil producing country, OPEC is a horrible model to follow. Almost all the countries in OPEC are corrupt, inefficient and have dictatorial govts who oppress the majority poor in their countries.

That said, I wonder what impact this will have in other conflict regions that provide lithium or substitutes to lithium like Congo and Afghanistan.

[davidw]

Chile already makes much(most?) of it's money from copper, and lately it seems that they have a decent handle on things, in that it's a stable democracy.

[xlpz]

What's the alternative exactly? Sell your resources as cheap as possible to avoid being corrupted by money? Surely there should be a way of capitalizing on your natural resources to improve the living standard of your people, and the explanation for most OPEC countries not being great is a big more complicated than this.