> OPEC has mostly been a big partner with the US. They are the ones that have mandated using the dollar as the baseline currency for buying and selling OPEC oil.

Has anyone ever quantified the benefit the U.S. supposedly gets from dollar denominated oil? How does that compare to the cost to the U.S. of paying cartel pricing for oil? Given that the U.S. is a huge oil consumer, surely the cost to it of cartel pricing in oil is huge.