ABSTRACT
The United States (US) was ready for a match of strength between the producers and consumers in which it would be the leader of the contest. The Europeans voiced their fear that a confrontation between consumers and producers might bring about an economic crisis paralleling that of the 1930s and warned the US to abandon its fight to lower oil prices as fruitless. The US was convinced that the producers could not withstand a determined united front of the consumers and expressed this opinion in 1971, when the efforts of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries began to bear fruits of success. In the middle of December 1973, the French premier, Pierre Mesmar, called for a new oil policy based on direct contact between the producers and consumers that would eliminate the international companies. As the producers were interested in using their oil for the economic development of their countries, they should enter into direct agreements between themselves and the consumers.
