ABSTRACT
In looking at the evolution of the 1973 oil crisis, it is clear that OPEC was only able to fix a much higher price unilaterally, first in October 1973 and then in January 1974, because of the situation prevailing within the market for crude oil, in which the balance between demand and supply was precarious, and was increasingly dependent upon the OPEC oil. In 1979 the upward pressure on market prices, which ulti mately persuaded OPEC to increase its own official price, was again partly the result of competition between oil companies and consuming countries for the available supplies. In other words, the consumers’ demand for petroleum played into the oil producers’ hands. This was in marked contrast to the position prevailing for most of the postwar period, when supplies of cheap oil had been plentiful, and companies had been able to accommodate the massive expansion in demand for petroleum to fuel the West’s phenomenal economic growth; by the beginning of the 1970s, instead o f a buyers’ market, it had turned very clearly in favour of sellers.
