Oil Imports Before The Embargo Of Iraq/Kuwait Oil The Persian Gulf supplied 25.3 percent of the crude oil and petroleum products imported into the United States from January to July 1990: 8.2 percent from Iraq, 14.8 percent from Saudia Arabia, and 1.2 percent from Kuwait. oil companies today are both far smaller than they were 20 years ago. oil industry as a whole and the value of the physical assets owned by U.S. In summary, the role played in the Mideast by the U.S.
These operations employ several hundred Americans. It also has a smaller share in other operations in Saudia Arabia, including a lubricating oil refining plant.Įxxon also owns shares of petrochemical plants in Saudia Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Mobil has 50 percent ownership of a refinery at Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, with a capacity of 250,000 fc/d, as well as a petrochemical plant there. Conoco has an equity interest in oil fields in nearby Dubai which produce 110,000 t/d. Amerada Hess has a small share in some oil fields in Abu Dhabi, amounting to about 9,000 b/d. citizens who worked there were evacuated. That facility, with a capacity of 50,000 b/d was closed down immediately after the Iraqi invasion and the 45 or so U.S. For example, Texaco owns a refinery (and a 50-percent share in the crude oil production that supplies it) at Mina Saud in the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. While in some cases (Algeria, Iraq and Libya), the transfer was accomplished by expropriation, in most others (Saudia Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Qatar) it took the form of gradually increasing "participation" agreements that extended over a number of years.Īmerican companies still own some assets in the area.
Most of the Mideast oil industry assets formerly owned by U.S.Ĭompanies were transferred to the Mideast countries during the 1970s. The company also draws on the expertise of another 2,000 or so resident Americans on loan from U.S. Today, of Saudi Aramco's 43,000 employees, only about 2,500 are Americans. Beginning with the acquisition of a 25 percent share in 1973, Saudia Arabia's government increased its share to 60 percent in 1974 and eventually to 100 percent in 1980, when it paid for substantially all of Aramco's assets. The takeover was an amicable and orderly process that proceeded over an extended period. In 1980, Saudi production peaked at 9.6 million b/d, following which it fell once more as high oil prices reduced international demand.īeginning in 1973, Saudi Arabia bought out the ownership interests in Aramco of the American oil companies. From less than 20,000 barrels per day (b/d) before 1944, Saudi production rose to 500,000 b/d by 1950 and to 3.5 million b/d by 1970. After five years of futile efforts, exploratory drilling finally found commercial quantities of oil in 1938, but large-scale oil production commenced only in the post World War II period. It had its origins in an exploration agreement signed in 1933 by Standard Oil of California (or Socal-Chevron's predecessor company) and the Saudi government. The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (commonly called Saudi Aramco) is a corporation wholly owned by the Saudi Arabian government that is the sole producer of oil and natural gas in that nation.Īramco was a partnership among Chevron, Exxon, Texaco and Mobil. companies own or hold a partial interest in some Mideast refineries and petrochemical plants and several thousand Americans still work in the oil industry in the region. Today, there are essentially no American- ownedproduction facilities in the area, although U.S. Since then, that role has diminished greatly as the governments of the region have assumed ownership of their national oil industries. oil companies had a major role in both the ownership and operation of oil production facilities in the Mideast. Before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose to power in the 1970s, U.S.