Tony Blair’s Labour government explored a plan to “break” the OPEC oil cartel in order to keep fuel prices low, declassified documents show, Report informs referring to Financial Times.
In late 2002, Jeremy Heywood, then principal private secretary to Blair, discussed using “a change of regime” in Iraq to flood the global oil market as a policy option, the papers reveal.
In an official memo, Foreign Office officials also suggested encouraging Venezuela or Nigeria to leave the group of petroleum exporting countries as a way of bringing down the price of oil set by OPEC.
At the time, the New Labour government was concerned by the rise in oil prices as the global economy teetered on the brink of recession after the dotcom crash and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.