OPEC's Decade: Has It Made a Difference?

Abstract

No one can deny that the past ten years have witnessed great changes in the international oil industry. A decade ago, the largest international oil companies—Exxon, Shell, British Petroleum, Texaco, Standard Oil of California, Mobil, and Gulf—still dominated the industry in virtually every respect. In 1972, these companies accounted for three fifths of the noncommunist world's production of crude oil and refined products, and similar shares of transport and marketing as well. Even these figures fail to reflect the relative profitability of these seven sisters. They controlled only one third of oil production in the United States, where costs were relatively high and profits correspondingly lower. By contrast, they controlled 88 percent of production in the low-cost, high-profit areas such as the Middle East and Latin America. Among these major companies, there were sizable disparities. Exxon, for example, had crude oil production that was nearly three times as large as Mobil's. Taken together, though, the big companies probably earned close to three fourths of all oil industry profits.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.