Page 457 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

454 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

reluctant to assume responsibility for matters beyond its competence to
handle. (Because of the dearth of competent local personnel the Abu Dhabi
National Oil Company is in effect run by Algerians, who may be counted upon,

whenever the occasion warrants it, to find trumped-up reasons for restricting
production.) Whatever the case, the companies have placed themselves at the
service of the Gulf oil slates, regulating oil production on their behalf and
raising prices at their behest. Rivalry between the companies themselves
nowadays takes less the form of competition for a larger share of the world

market in oil than that of a contest for long-term contracts with the Gulf oil
states and preferential terms of access to their reserves of crude. Until very
recently the companies were wont to justify their progressive submission to the

dictates of the governments of these states by arguing that their concessions,
however much they might be modified by each successive participation agree­
ment, still gave them access, albeit in ever diminishing degree, to their own
reserves of crude. Now even this flimsy justification is denied them, and all that
the companies have to fall back upon by way of excuse for their unfailing
deference to the wishes of the governments of the Arab oil states is that it allows

them privileged access to government-owned crude. It is a dubious privilege,
as the companies know full well. For not only can it be revoked in an instant, at
the whim of any one of these governments, but it has also been obtained at very
high cost, viz. the abdication by the companies of their prime responsibility to

their customers, the oil-consuming countries. This abdication, and the drastic
diminution of their power over the past decade, has left the companies virtual
prisoners of the Arab oil states. They are forced to be accessories to, or at best
mute witnesses of, whatever economic follies and excesses the governments of

these states may care to commit. They are not even any longer, as they were
dubbed a few years back, ‘mere tax-collecting agencies’ for these governments,
instead, they have become even lowlier functionaries, the bearers of tribute
from the West and hostages for the good conduct of their own governments in

Arab eyes.
after the^p^edemse^bv^Vaud11 'hem' They may be f°rCed’
ARAMCO rn lift • Saudi government in its negotiations with
mX? A?r’hP quantity of crude, whatever the state of the
and some rn PnCe. ° eir Pre^erential access to crude, they may be required
hosfaov^nmrTnieS ~ t0 entef Partnership with the

and pV ■ n t0 PUt UP the ma,Or part of 1116 caPital needed) in huge
T SC.hem/S Of industria^ation, most, though not all, of them
i . ° 01 ln ustrV> whose chances of economic success are prob-
ematical in the extreme. The Gulf oil states have made no secret of the fact that
t eyinten to move more and more into the‘downstream’operations of the oil
in ustry, to build more refineries, petro-chemical plants and other associated

acilities in their own countries, to transport and market abroad crude oil, gas
and refined products. In short, they are bent upon extending their control over