The Oil Industry In The 1930's

During the 1930’s, as the world suffered the effects of a wide spread depression, many industries were either shrinking or disappearing, with one exception: the oil industry. Despite the economical and social hardships enveloping this time period, oil had become a necessity and as such, it was dealt with differently. Being the the main source of fuel and lightings for millions of people, constituting a variety of countries, exploration for the next generations supply of oil was as exuberant as it had ever been. As the masses became ever-more dependent on this resource, government and world leaders began to play a bigger roll in an industry once dominated by big business. In the fifth installment of the Prize titled, “Crude Diplomacy,” we

began to deploy the Navy and Marines to the areas surrounding Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. These action were in anticipation of a Russian invasion, in which case, stationed soldiers would destroy any oil wells that could potentially fall to Russian forces. As fear of communism continued to grow, the U.S. also set forth the Marshall Plan. The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to help Eastern European nations recover from the war by granting them $13 billion dollars in aid. Leaders in the U.S. believed that if the struggling nations were assisted in their recovery, they would not turn to communism as an alternative solution. The steady supply of oil from Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations also helped accelerate the recovery process, and as a result, the spread of communism was somewhat curbed. In 1947, as more nations converted from coal to oil, a crucial oil deal was made with the intent to more efficiently supply the worlds growing demand. As part of the deal, the original partners in the ARAMCO concession, TEXACO and SOCAL (Chevron) were joined by two other companies, ESSO (EXXON) and Socony Vacuum (Mobile). The theory was that the addition of these new partners would help to better supply and finance the production of

As I verified the spelling of King Ibn Saud’s name on the internet, I came across an article in which he was said to have fathered more than 40 sons and an unspecified number of daughters! That number was quite shocking to me, and immediately made a connection in my mind between this man and a rabbit. Another interesting fact I came across involved the topic of nationalization. I had no clue that national governments could take privately held assets, and convert them to government/national