63
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. J. Soeder, Fracking and the Environment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59121-2_4
Chapter 4
The Energy Crisis and Unconventional
Resources
After the Second World War, international exploration efforts found substantial
petroleum resources in South America, the Niger Delta, the North Sea, northern
Africa, western Australia, and many other places. The biggest oil strikes of all were
in the Middle East, starting with the nineteenth century Anglo-Persian Oil Company
discoveries in Iran, and culminating in the 1948 discovery of the super-giant (>10
billion barrels) Al-Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is the largest oil field
on Earth, having produced some 55 billion barrels of oil by 2005, and is expected to
produce at least that much more before depletion (Dunham 2005).
Exploration for oil in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere was initially
carried out by the U.S., British and French majors in partnerships with governmentowned national oil companies. By the late 1950s, many of the host nations began to
realize that the foreign oil companies in these so-called partnerships were raking in
a much larger share of the profits than the pittance being paid in royalties to the
government. As local populations became more educated in petroleum technology
and oilfield engineering operations, many government-run oil companies discovered that they were quite capable of producing petroleum and natural gas on their
own without any “help” from the Americans, French or British. Some countries
kicked out the foreign oil workers altogether, while others reduced the foreigners to
an advisory role, giving the national oil company a majority interest in joint ventures.
This new-found assertiveness caused the major oil companies to largely pull
back from upstream production operations in many of these countries. The majors
shifted their focus to midstream and downstream roles, collecting crude oil on
company- flagged tankers at Middle Eastern and North African ports, shipping it off
to their refineries in Texas or elsewhere, and then selling the resulting products
through name-brand distribution systems in domestic and international markets.
The government-owned oil companies made substantially higher profits from oil
production than from royalties, the majors had a steady supply of high-grade crude
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. J. Soeder, Fracking and the Environment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59121-2_4
Chapter 4
The Energy Crisis and Unconventional
Resources
After the Second World War, international exploration efforts found substantial
petroleum resources in South America, the Niger Delta, the North Sea, northern
Africa, western Australia, and many other places. The biggest oil strikes of all were
in the Middle East, starting with the nineteenth century Anglo-Persian Oil Company
discoveries in Iran, and culminating in the 1948 discovery of the super-giant (>10
billion barrels) Al-Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is the largest oil field
on Earth, having produced some 55 billion barrels of oil by 2005, and is expected to
produce at least that much more before depletion (Dunham 2005).
Exploration for oil in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere was initially
carried out by the U.S., British and French majors in partnerships with governmentowned national oil companies. By the late 1950s, many of the host nations began to
realize that the foreign oil companies in these so-called partnerships were raking in
a much larger share of the profits than the pittance being paid in royalties to the
government. As local populations became more educated in petroleum technology
and oilfield engineering operations, many government-run oil companies discovered that they were quite capable of producing petroleum and natural gas on their
own without any “help” from the Americans, French or British. Some countries
kicked out the foreign oil workers altogether, while others reduced the foreigners to
an advisory role, giving the national oil company a majority interest in joint ventures.
This new-found assertiveness caused the major oil companies to largely pull
back from upstream production operations in many of these countries. The majors
shifted their focus to midstream and downstream roles, collecting crude oil on
company- flagged tankers at Middle Eastern and North African ports, shipping it off
to their refineries in Texas or elsewhere, and then selling the resulting products
through name-brand distribution systems in domestic and international markets.
The government-owned oil companies made substantially higher profits from oil
production than from royalties, the majors had a steady supply of high-grade crude