ABSTRACT
One of the most spectacular economic achievements of past 100 years has been the growth and development of the petroleum industry. At the present time, Middle East is a region where output of petroleum is considerably in excess of demand. The oil production of this area, in terms of the total world output, has increased markedly during the twentieth century. Although oil production in the Middle East first began in Iran in the early part of the twentieth century, it has only been since the Second World War that output begun to increase rapidly. During early 1940s Iran was the largest oil producer in Middle East, followed by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. After intensive oil exploration and development, petroleum output from both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia increased greatly until, by 1950, the production from the Saudi Arabian fields almost equalled that from Iran. The operating company was Dubai Petroleum, owned by an international group of firms headed by Continental Oil.
