Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo

Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso (13 December 1903 – 3 September 1979) was a prominent Venezuelan diplomat and politician primarily responsible for the inception and creation of OPEC.

Early life

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Pérez Alfonzo helped found the political party Democratic Action (AD; Acción Democrática). As Minister of Development during the first democratic government of Venezuela, the short-lived administration of Rómulo Gallegos (1947-1948), he was responsible for increasing oil revenues for the country by raising taxes through what later became known worldwide as the 50/50 formula. As Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons during the second democratic government of Venezuela, the administration of Rómulo Betancourt (1959–1964), he was responsible for the creation of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) for the purpose of rationalizing and thereby increasing oil prices in the world market. He died in Washington, D.C., USA, at the Georgetown University Hospital, on 3 September 1979, having succumbed to pancreatic cancer. He was 76 years of age.

Perez Alfonzo had to seek asylum in the US - before Betancourt got to power and brought Perez back to Venezuela. During this period Perez worked for the Texas Railroad Commission. He developed his ideas about conservation and stabilization of production. He took extensive notes of the TRC methods for regulation of production and of production methods (to maximise recovery) and he tried to implement them in Caracas. He was such a good planner that he took these notes translated into Arabic for the Cairo meeting with was the precursor of OPEC and where Jablonsky introduced Perez to Abdullah Tariki.

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