ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the geographical distribution of the world's principal energy production. To understand thoroughly the strategic influences of oil on international relations, it is necessary to examine the structure and workings of the oil market as well as its developmental trends. The pessimistic outlook is clearly reflected in the World Energy Outlook reports sponsored by the International Energy Agency, the coordinating energy body for the industrialized states. The reports acknowledge that the positive effects of the measures taken after the first oil crisis did lead to a real fall in oil prices that began to be felt internationally in the early 1980s. The commercial logic of the new oil market had reduced the chances that oil prices would suddenly jump back to what they were in the inflexible market of the 1970s. Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries' share of the international oil market dwindled from 49 percent of total world production in 1979 to 33 percent in 1983.
