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Oil is undoubtedly rather more than a mere hydrocarbon. It is a development factor, an essential element in energy balances, a strategic weapon, a resource characterized by unequal distribution, and also by unequal consumption. For more than a century now, it has showed its importance, whether during periods of crisis, or at times of strong growth.
Under such circumstances, few countries have allowed mere market laws to operate freely. Whether visible or discreet, the hand of the State has been present in many cases, depending on different purposes and taking various forms. Hence national companies developed, if only in order to deal with the Majors and their greatly feared power. One finds examples of national companies both in Western Europe and in certain developing countries that have substantial resources on their soil. Those companies did not all experience the same destiny, but they have sometimes influenced the rules of the oil game.
The colloquium held in Paris in 2003 («National oil companies: history, characteristics, comparisons from the inter-war period to the end of the 20th century») provided some new facts and viewpoints in connection with this history, still relatively unknown.
You will read contributions here from various horizons making it possible to illuminate the present and the near future, since oil industry issues continue to challenge the world.
List of contents
Contents: Alain Beltran: A Comparative History of National Oil Companies. Introduction - Anne-Thérèse Michel: The Sources of Oil History. Total Group's Historical Archives - André Philippon: The French Example. The 1928s Laws. Longevity and Effectiveness of the Approach to Creating and Maintaining a National Oil Industry in a Consumer Country - Appearances and Realities - Douglas A. Yates: Life Stories and Family Histories of the French Oil Industry. The Rise and Fall of the Corps des Mines - Mohamed Sassi: The Merger between CFP and Desmarais Frères in 1965. Toward Formation of Total Group - Samir Saul: SN REPAL, CFP and «Oil-Paid-in-Francs» - Pier Angelo Toninelli: Energy Supply and Economic Development in Italy. The Role of the State-owned Companies - Gabriel Tortella: Oil Policies in 20th-Century Spain - Khaoua Nadji: The SONATRACH Oil Company (Algeria). Development Lever or Instrument of Power? - Martin Chick: Oil, National Security and Fuel Policy in France and the United Kingdom, 1945-1972 - René Walther: Pechelbronn from 1918 to 1962, or Constitution of a National Oil Company Based on a Local Deposit - Christophe Briand: Société Nationale des Pétroles d'Aquitaine. An Industrial Strategy between National Interests and Local Expectations (from 1951 to the end of the 1960s) - Daniele Pozzi: The Natural Gas Industry in Italy since Autarky until Eni's Hegemony (1935-1965) - Mogens Rüdiger: The Danish Oil and Natural Gas Company, 1972-2000 - Morgan Le Dez: Normandy: A Centre for Oil Companies Setting up Shop (1919-1939) - Uri Bialer: Delek: the Formative Period of Israel's National Oil Company - Armelle Demagny: France and the Project for a Community Oil Policy, from the Signature of the Treaty of Rome to the First Oil Shock - Carlo J. Morelli: The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 1945-1954. Government Business Relationships in Conflict?
About the author
The Editor: Alain Beltran is a research director at the National Centre for Scientific Research in a unit common to the Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris-Sorbonne Universities. He has specialized in history of energy and of raw materials, of major companies, of innovation, and of public research. He has also published works on Électricité de France, Suez et Gaz de France, Elf-Aquitaine, SNCF, Veolia, etc. With Total Company's help, he arranges colloquia dealing with the history of oil (the third one will be in 2010) and coordinates work on the history of hydrocarbons in France and in the countries formerly under French influence.
