The Control of Oil

"The Control of Oil," By Dr. John M. Blair is a brilliant look at how the price of crude oil was determined by giant petroleum companies (the seven sisters) and a dozen members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Blair traces the history of these controls and explains how they recklessly triggered the 1970's global energy crisis.This 1976 publication is a classic. To this end, Blair spent thirty-two years in the federal government. He started in 1938 as an author of monographs for pre-World War II investigations. Early on, he made his name focusing on the sizable concentrations of economic power in the oil industry by the Rockefeller family and family foundation. Afterwards he spent nearly a decade with the Federal Trade Commission as an Assistant Chief Economist and finally Blair spent fourteen years as Chief Economist of the Senate Subcommittee on Anti-trust and Monopoly. What makes this book truly special is the author's enormous access to critical government information.Blair describes the oil industry's principal tax preferences, which worked to the advantage of the major companies and against smaller nonintegrated companies that could have favorably altered the availability and price of oil to consumers. The author also goes into great detail to reveal how the "Arab Embargo" that set the stage for the massive oil price explosion of October 1973 - January 1974 had little impact on supply and that in reality there was no crude oil shortfall. Ultimately, Blair emphasizes the need for developing alternate energy sources in the future. This book had its genesis in a special 1973 Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project. The final result is a groundbreaking examination of the dramatic profits of oil companies. Bert Ruiz

A perverse book on the business of oil. Perverse if you don't believe in aristocracy, corporate manipulation, imperialism, and plain old exploitation.

A timeless comprehensive study done by an expert, published by the time of the so-called "oil crisis" of the mid-nineteen-seventies; unmasking the oil industry's politics, economics and technical aspects. Top priority for any well informed person, in order to know, how the "free" market has been circumvented by the best kept secret conspiracy of all times, between major producers and giant distributors at the expense of domestic and foreign consumers. There is no such thing as an oil shortage, that's a lie.