ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the policy changes and their outcomes as reflected in capital investments. Apparently in response to the uncertain prospects for the oil industry, the Soviets made several shifts of emphasis in their energy development policy during the 1970s and the early 1980s. The renewed emphasis on Siberian oil appears to have been less a reversal of the balanced energy strategy as formulated in 1976 than a response to the increasing difficulties that confronted the oil industry. The problem of just where to produce has been one of the major issues bedeviling Soviet energy strategy and in particular that part of the strategy concerned with oil. Oil Minister V. D. Shashin revealed that the plan for the growth in oil reserves was not fulfilled in 1971-1973. He pointed out that the growth in Soviet oil production had in the past been largely based on the discovery of new large oil deposits.
