OPEC, the Seven Sisters, and oil market dominance: An evolutionary game theory and agent-based modeling approach

•An evolutionary and computational approach to studying energy markets is proposed.•The approach is applied to the historical struggle between OPEC and the Seven Sisters.•An evolutionary game models heterogeneous cartels, their learning, and market shares.•An agent-based model simulates the theoretical model of the cartels across time.•A transition in power is found driven by evolutionary learning and resource growth.

A methodological toolkit comprised of evolutionary game theory and agent-based modeling is used to study OPEC and the Seven Sisters as they struggled for control over global petroleum markets during the 1960s and 1970s. An evolutionary game theory model incorporates heterogeneous populations, energy-specific variables, and behavioral considerations to capture the fundamentals of the applied problem. An agent-based model is used to provide detailed results and demonstrate the importance of the natural resource to the outcome of the model.