ABSTRACT
The oil market of the 1970s experienced radical changes, both in its structure and in the perceptions of its major participants. The decade marked a major shift in the balance of power in favor of the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), with resulting cyclical movements in oil prices and massive revision in energy-demand structure. This rule characterizes almost all oil production in the world, except in the Soviet Union and China where water flooding as a secondary-recovery technique is often applied in the beginning of the primary-recovery stage, leading to higher production rates initially, followed by rapid decline. It is true that there are many untouched basins; however, drilling has been inadequate partly because of the high costs of offshore production and partly because the technology for deep drilling is still not fully developed not solely because political problems and territorial disputes in the developing world have hindered access to oil.
