ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the underlying considerations determining the sharing of oil revenues between oil companies and producing countries in the Middle East. The sharing of oil revenue is a matter of bargaining between the different interests concerned, the bargaining being influenced by political as well as by economic considerations. The chapter deals first with the basic conditions affecting the bargaining process, secondly with the question of ‘exploitation,’ and thirdly, with some problems of international policy. Most of the serious charges that exploitation exists rest implicitly or explicitly on the assumption that foreign interests use their superior political or economic power to prevent the exploited country from making the most profitable use to itself of its own resources. The countries consuming Middle East oil want an assured and adequate supply of oil at acceptable prices; the countries supplying it want to obtain the maximum possible revenue from its sale; the companies producing it want a profitable return on their investment.
