ABSTRACT
New state-owned competitors have emerged from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries world, such as Petromin, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, and Petroleos de Venezuela. The remaining oil majors survive as powerful players, but in a noticeably more complex world than that of the 1960s. The fact that the oil companies came out of the 1970s politically uncompromised means that in much the same position as any other kind of multinational that is interested in building a lasting relationship with the Third World. Initiatives or institutions toward which the multinational community was deeply hostile have been watered down or shelved. In most parts of the world, restrictions on inward and outward investment have steadily been whittled away. The entry of a giant player onto the world scene has then meant that other purely national giants such as British Telecom and Japan's Nippon Telephone and Telegraph are being forced to develop global investment strategies in their turn.
