Excess oil supply or overproduction of oil in a perfectly competitive market is a common issue and this has happened recently in march 2020. Because of the COVID-19, all the oil manufacturers held lots of barrel of oils so this caused to plunge of oil prices under $0 dollars, this means oil manufacturers were not able to find a buyer of oil, sooverproduction creates storage costs to the manufacturers in this way, manufacturers are not willing to bear to budget for storage expenses and they try to sell oils for less than nothing. So, it is important to exist aregulatory agency which is Opec for the world oil market.

According toDesta, M. G. (2010), "OPEChas constantly to monitorthemarket and take appropriate actions to move supply levels up or down depending on market circumstances. It does this throughtheallocation of maximum daily production quotas to its members" (p.439). So, for the question "To achieve these goals of stable and fair oil prices, what must OPEC do to maintain", Opec must increase the oil production or regulate the oil prices against oil price increases.Because of the increased oil production, oil prices will go down and oil prices will be regulated.

And secondly, seems like it is not easy to achieve these goals by Opec, since the countries under OPEC are in a cartel.So, it isa group effort of influencing price not only by the OPEC but others. Because the cartel group is made with a formal agreement between the oil producer countries. If a country goes against, the other countries most likely create barriers right away.

References

Desta, M. G. (2010). OPEC production management practices under WTO law and the antitrust law of non-OPEC countries.Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law,28(4), 439-463. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/856053861?accountid=158986

Baye, M. R., &Prince, J. T. (2017). Managerial economics and business strategy (9 th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education