ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the early years of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It begins with the formulation of an Arab oil policy that consolidated Arab oil technocrats as a cohesive and self-conscious group, and runs through the establishment of OPEC in Baghdad in 1960 and the first four Arab Petroleum congresses organized by the Arab League. Both the Arab League as a regional organization and oil technocrats as members of OPEC, representatives of Arab governments or independent oil consultants used the congresses as propaganda events to further the agenda of Petroleum Arabism. The interplay between OPEC and the Arab League, and the agency of those Arab oilmen who shared common platform in these organizations, was instrumental in the creation of new political and public cultures of oil throughout the region, mediated by the new international climate of decolonization.
