Major oil consuming nations’ history

Since prevailing in the nineteen thirty-nine / nineteen forty-five war (World War 2), the former Allies turned against one another as it is so well said in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s quotation in nineteen forty-seven : There is now an Iron Curtain along the Old Continent (Europe) ; quotation that symbolized the beginning of the Cold War Era which will last until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety one (1991) after the famous Mikhail Gorbatchev speech, result of this man’s Glasnost and Perestroika politics. As it became a central interest in geopolitics given its importance especially for defence industries in the climate of the Cold War, oil access became a priority for Western Nations whom were fighting the influence of The Soviet Union at the time. But this oil running meant as well dependence to oil and as such to oil producing nations, mainly Arab Nations so when the US backed israel in the Kippur War (nineteen seventy-three), Arab leaders decided to take action and punished the US and the West by raising the crude oil prices : the prices went from fifteen dollars per barrel to seventy-five dollars per barrel in one day, equivalent to a multiplication by five ! The result was catastrophic ; this provoked a stock exchange crash, an inability of the oil companies to provide the necessary oil quantities for the Western economies resulting as such in a massive oil shortage, and most dangerous result was that the US could not provide anymore the necessary oil to sustain its military campaign in Vietnam ! All these result are summed-up today by experts under the name of the 1973 Crisis. This crisis accelerated the movement of globalisation, encouraging companies to move to Third World countries in search of cheaper labour force in order to reduce at once production costs. But in this climate of overwhelmingly increasing global prices, those who made their way are oil companies such as Exxon, Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Elf, British Petroleum (BP), Chevron, Aramco etc. who saw their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exponentially increasing. Until today Western Nations still depend on oil imports and these oil companies grow even stronger on international economic, and by extension political, stage mainly through merger actions such as Exxon-Mobil and Total-Elf-Finna ; actions that render these oil companies monopolistic in their sector imposing as such their rules on the consumer, and by extension given the importance of oil, on the global economy.

Oil producing nations’ history

Since the invention of the diesel engine in the late nineteenth century, oil business took a central stage in produced and transformed goods. As such, oil companies began thriving and multiplying. The main regions where oil used to be dug are the US, the Middle-East and Romania. According to its “America for Americans” protectionist self-reliance economic politics which lasted until the beginning of the Cold-War Era in nineteen forty-five, the US produced their own oil for their own demand mainly in the Texan region encompassing the Gulf of Mexico (Houston etc.). Following its engagement as a leading Western Nation against the Communist world-wide influence led by the United Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) and when modern economies saw oil taking an outstanding place in their functionality, the US took on the mission to secure its oil imports as it is nowadays called The Petroleum Security of the United States of America and as such looking towards the emerging oil producing nations’ of the Middle-East. In this region, oil producing is an old story, the first fields to be developed in the region were in Iraq (more precisely in the northern region of Mossul and southern region of Basra) under the Turkish Ottoman Rule which lasted until nineteen eighteen (1918). The main customer of the production was the Turkish Crown’s ally : The German Imperial Crown. The first pipeline to be developed was named the “Baghdad-Bahn” (or the “Baghdad-Road” in German) which encompassed a highway, a gas main and an oil pipeline in order to ensure the adequate infrastructures necessary to the establishment and settlement of Germanic oil companies (Dutch Shell etc.) and responding to the high needs of the new but fast economic development of the region. The other region having known an outstanding economic development thanks to oil business is the Arabian Peninsula, just south of Iraq. Following the discovery of oil in Basra, the “Al Sabah” Kuwaiti ruling royal family hired some British geologists to set an expertise research mission over its tiny territory in search for oil along with the Iraqi border ; the research bare fruits and Kuwait entered in the community of oil producing countries. In nineteen thirty-three, an American exploration expeditionary team found oil while digging for water in the Persian Gulf coastline of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established just one year ago by His Royal Highness King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud after a long struggle against the rival Al Rasheed tribe. Given the outstanding quantities discovered, a world-wide record in oil discovery at the time, King Abdul’Aziz Ibn Saud’s Desert got the attention of numerous industrialized countries in order to be awarded an exploitation contract in The Saudi Persian Gulf oil fields. While the British, the French, the Japanese and the Germans were negotiating, the Americans were the first to put money on the table without further discussion and as such, the first joint Arab American oil company was established : the ARAMCO (Arabian American Company). Until now, Aramco stays the most important company in its sector amongst all oil companies in the World as it has control over an outstanding quantity of oil representing nearly forty percent of the world’s oil reserves. The other less known former major oil producing region is Romania. Indeed, this country used to be the first oil exporting country in Europe, its oil played a major role during World War Two as it was The Third Reich’s first oil source without which it would have never been possible for Adolf Hitler to keep his War Machine operative and on the move. It is precisely in the region of Ploiesti that oil was mainly pumped out but given its o’too well known central role in the German War Machine, the Allies launched in nineteen forty-four a huge carpet-bombing mission using B-25 Mitchell aircrafts to raze the oil refineries, the oil rigs and oil wells ; following this campaign The Wehrmacht (The German Armed Forces) had to face the Soviets on the Eastern Front during the winter of that year with a limited ability to move its Panzers which helped as such the Ally Victory in Europe (V.E. Day – Victory in Europe Day).