ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters of this book have attempted to describe and evaluate the role and significance of oil in different nations and groups of nations. The contrasting, and in some ways conflicting, interests of the U.S.A., the main oil-producing nations, the principal consuming countries of Western Europe and Japan, the developing nations with their rapidly increasing demand for oil, and the U.S.S.R. and its allies have been stressed. In addition, it was necessary to take into account the growing complexity of the global oil industry’s organization, for the companies and other institutions such as O.P.E.C. concerned with oil have legal, economic and political relationships with the world’s nations and inevitably form part of the international oil system.
