List of Petroleum & Natural Gas Producing Countries | Geography

Here is a list of petroleum and natural gas producing countries:- 1. North America 2. The Caribbean Countries 3. The Middle Eastern Countries 4. The U.S.S.R. 5. Countries of Africa 6. Countries of Asia 7. Parts of Australasia 8. Countries of South America 9. Countries of Europe.

North America (U.S.A.):

It was at Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859 that the world’s first commercial oil well was dug and after that this valuable hidden resource was rapidly ex­ploited. The United States has been by far the greatest oil producer for more than a century.

At one time the U.S.A. accounted for 90 per cent of the world pro­duction but as other oilfields in Middle Eastern coun­tries, in Venezuela and elsewhere were brought into production, the U.S.A.’s market share dropped. It was the leading oil producer in the world until 1974, when it was overtaken by the U.S.S.R. It now ac­counts for about 13 per cent of world output.

The U.S.A. was the pioneer of a new industry and in the early days many inefficient and wasteful prac­tices, such as wild-catting and uncontrolled tapping of gushers leading to accidents and fires, made the oil industry rather precarious in some respects. As a result, however, of its long experience in the industry, the U.S.A. today uses the most advanced techniques for oil prospecting and drilling.

Five of the top seven world petroleum companies are American, namely Standard Oil, New Jersey (Esso); Gulf; Texaco; Stand­ard Oil, California and Mobil. These companies under­take oil mining all over the world. The U.S.A. is also the leading world producer of natural gas (about 42 per cent of the world total) and is notable as a country where natural gas has been widely used for many years.

The U.S.A. has large resources of all the principal grades of crude oil and of natural gas, but its rapid technological development has created an insatiable demand for petroleum products for industrial and domestic use and to power automobiles. Oil pro­duction is around 400 million tonnes a year and it is estimated that during the last century about 10 000 million tonnes of oil have been extracted.

This has left reserves totalling only about 4 000 million tonnes, or about 5 per cent of the world’s total oil reserves. Despite the fact that new wells are dug every year, oil production and consumption are rising much more rapidly than new discoveries are being made and many old oil regions are being exhausted.

The last major field to be discovered was in Alaska, and though reserves are large there are many difficul­ties of transporting the oil. More than three-quarters of the U.S.A.’s total energy requirements (which amount to more than 40 per cent of the world total energy requirements) are supplied by oil and con­sumption is twice as great as production.

To conserve its home supplies and supplement home production, the U.S.A. is a major importer of oil and it has therefore been greatly affected by oil price rises since 1973. This has led to energy saving policies, more encouragement to develop alternative fuels such as coal and nuclear power, and experi­ments in distilling oil from shales in the Rockies.

Much of the imported oil is refined at coastal refi­neries, chiefly on the Atlantic coast, where it is just as easy for oil supplies from abroad to be unloaded from tankers as it is for home-produced oil to be carried right across the country from the inland fields by pipelines.

Oil occurs in many parts of the U.S.A., but there are six major oil regions: the Mid-Continent region of northern Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas; the Gulf Coast region of southern Texas, Louisiana, Mis­sissippi and Arkansas; the Rocky Mountain region of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico; the Californian region of southern California; the Appala­chian region of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio and the new field in Alaska. Smaller fields occur in the Mid-West in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

(a) The Mid-Continent Region:

This is the largest oil-producing area in the U.S.A. and has been worked since oil was first exploited in 1890 in the town of Neodesha, Kansas. The oil boom reached its height in the 1930s when Oklahoma City became the heart of the American oil industry. The field yields a varied range of petroleum: light paraffin-based oils from which petrol is readily extracted, heavy asphaltic oils and mixed-based oils from which lubricants are ob­tained.

Due to its central position, far from the indus­trial districts of the mid-Atlantic seaboard and the Great Lakes, the oil is distributed by a dense network of pipelines which carry crude oil and refined products to Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and the rest of the. U.S.A. The Mid-Continent Field is also a great natural gas-producing area, for most wells yield both oil and gas. Oklahoma and Kansas are both important gas producers.

(b) The Gulf Coast Region:

Commercial oil drill­ing began in 1901 with the discovery of the Spindletop oil pool in south-eastern Texas. The scramble for oil was so competitive that as many as six wells were sometimes drilled in half a hectare (1 acre). The richest oil deposits are found in the coastal districts of Texas and Louisiana and the oil-bearing strata ex­tend far under the continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil is recovered by off-shore drilling as far as 140 km (88 miles) from land. There are minor oil deposits in Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama. The oil pools of the Gulf Coast region occur in association with salt domes and yield heavy asphalt-based oils. They are most useful as fuel oil (e.g. bunker oil for steamships).

Lubricants and sulphur residues are also extracted. Modern cracking processes also allow for the extraction of much gasoline (petrol). The coastal region has little natural gas, but further inland in Texas and Louisiana there are large deposits.

(c) The Rocky Mountain Region:

A very exten­sive area stretching from Montana to New Mexico in the eastern Rockies contains oil-bearing strata. The oil occurs only in scattered deposits, however, because of the excessive folding and faulting of the rocks. Mining is more difficult, more expensive, and many potential oil districts are inaccessible.

Much drilling was carried out in the 1940s and this doubled the output of the preceding decade. The most important oil states are Wyoming and New Mexico. The wells yield mainly high grade light oils, which are sent by long-distance pipeline to the industrial east. Most of the oil reserves are government or state-owned.

(d) The Californian Region:

California is the U.S.A.’s third largest oil-producing region. Although crude oil was extracted in California as early as 1890, the oil boom did not follow until twenty years later, when California led all the other states in oil produc­tion. California’s remoteness from the Atlantic and Great Lakes industrial and urban markets at first hindered the oil industry.

But the prosperity and prestige of California which resulted from the gold rush, the Hollywood film-making boom and the de­velopment of prosperous agricultural and industrial settlements led to a rapid growth in population which is still continuing as people migrate from other parts of the U.S.A. This created a very large market for lo­cally-produced oil, especially in the enormous cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The fields of Los Angeles/Long Beach and southern San Joaquin yield both light and asphaltic oils as well as natural gas. The Californian state government has enacted laws to prevent the wastage of natural gas which is therefore retained and distributed by pipe­line to consuming centres for both industrial and do­mestic purposes.

The pressure in some of the Cali­fornian oil pools was very high and many of the original wells were gushers. Pressure is nowadays maintained by pumping gas or sea-water into the wells to take the place of the oil removed.

(e) The Appalachian and Eastern Interior Region:

This region is the least important oil and gas producing region today but was the pioneer region and once yielded high quality paraffin-based oils, excellent for making gasoline (petrol) and lubricating oils. The Appalachian crude oil contained few heavy residues or impurities and was practically sulphur-free.

Scat­tered oil wells in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Ken­tucky, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan yield very little oil today though natural gas is still produced in con­siderable quantities. The chief importance of these oil fields was their important role in the location of industries in the past which aided the development of the great northern manufacturing belt.

This belt stretching from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic sea­board includes such cities as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Some of America’s largest refineries and petrochemical plants are still found in the region but most of them use imported crude oil.

(f) The Alaskan Region:

Alaska has enormous reserves of both oil and gas, some estimates claim it has as much as Saudi Arabia, but it is expensive to produce and transport because of the cold, tundra climate. The huge North Slope field was tapped at Prudhoe Bay in 1968. Oil production from this field is about 17 per cent of the U.S. total and there are also huge supplies of gas. A pipeline carries oil across Alaska to Valdez for shipment to mainland U.S.A. and a pipeline is planned to carry gas but has not yet been built.

Canada:

Canada produces about 2 per cent of the world’s oil. The pioneer fields were in Ontario and the Mackenzie River Basin but the main fields are now in the Prairies. Oil was found in 1947 at Leduc, near Edmonton in Alberta, and has since been found in many nearby areas. Canada has ample oil and gas for domestic requirements and also exports oil to the U.S.A. and elsewhere.

By 1960, the annual produc­tion had reached 30 million tonnes, and Alberta alone had more than 4,000 oil wells. Annual production is now about 62 million tonnes, of which Alberta con­tributes about three-quarters and Saskatchewan just under a quarter. The major oilfields are located around Edmonton, Pembina, Redwater, Calgary and Turner Valley. Minor deposits occur in British Colum­bia, Manitoba and Ontario.

Canada has over 19,200 km (12,000 miles) of pipelines, of which the longest single line is the Intra-provincial Pipeline (3,240 km or 2,025 miles long) from Redwater to Toronto. Ex­ploration off the East coast and in the Arctic initially met with little success and existing producing areas are running out, but in 1980 a large new discovery was made in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. It may also be possible to utilize the Athabasca Tar Sands in future though it is uneconomic to develop these at present.

Like the United States, Canada makes valuable use of its natural gas resources. Its gas pipelines are more extensive than its oil lines. Those from the Alberta gasfields run all the way to the industrial plants of Toronto and Montreal. The supplies for Vancouver and Seattle (U.S.A.) come from Clarke Lake, Buick Creek and Blueberry in northern British Columbia as well as from Grand Prairie in Alberta.

The Caribbean Countries:

Bordering the Caribbean Sea are two oil-rich coun­tries, Mexico and Venezuela.

(a) Mexico:

Petroleum in Mexico was first mined in 1901 on the coastal plain of Tampico and Tuxpam. Gushers after gushers were tapped and oil brought fabulous wealth and astonishing changes to these backward agricultural districts almost overnight. By 1921 output had reached a peak. The annual yield was then nearly 30 million tonnes or 30 per cent of the world total of the time.

From that time oil pro­duction first declined until the end of the Second World War after which there was some improvement. Increasing demand and higher oil prices have encour­aged a new burst of development and output has more than doubled during the 1970s to reach almost 50 million tonnes by 1977. The decline of the Mexican oil industry was largely the result of political rather than natural factors.

Political unrest in the 1920s and 1930s discouraged the U.S. and British companies operating in the area from investing in further explo­ration and they also let production from their existing wells decline. Their fears were justified in 1938 when the oil industry was nationalized. Since then the oil industry has been state-run and less finance has been available for exploration or technical improvement than would have been the case under the international companies. The position has only recently begun to improve.

New fields were discovered and production rose during the 1950s and 1960s but oil imports were still required. Then in 1972 large new fields were found in the south of the country and the develop­ment of refineries and petrochemicals industries has followed. Mexico also has rich resources of natural gas and uses them for fuel and petrochemical pro­duction.

(b) Venezuela:

Oil production began in Venezuela in 1918 and by the 1930s the country was the second largest oil producer. Continued exploration and the co-operation of the government with the major U.S. and European oil companies kept Venezuela in the forefront of world oil production for many years but since reaching a peak production of almost 200 mil­lion tonnes in 1973 output has begun to decline as wells are exhausted.

Present production is around 117 million tonnes. Almost all the oil is exported either in crude or refined form. The Gulf of Maracaibo, the first area to be exploited, is still the leading oil region of Venezuela, but oil is also found inland of Puerto la Cruz, in the Llanos and in the Orinoco delta. Most of the oilfields are favourably located at no great distance from the coast, which reduces transport costs. Most exports go to North America, but European countries also buy Venezuelan oil.

Oil is refined at Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello, Puerto la Cruz, in the Paraguana peninsula, and in several other Venezuelan towns. Much oil is also shipped to the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao, 400 km (250 miles) off the shallow Venezuelan coast, where some of the largest oil refineries in the world are situated. Crude oil is also exported from the region. Venezuela has gas deposits associated with its oil and much of this was wasted in the past. In recent years, however, greater use has been made of natural gas.

Small oil deposits in the island of Trinidad are worked and locally refined. Trinidad is also famous for its Pitch Lake, an almost inexhaustible source of viscous asphalt or bitumen. The lake is 87 metres (285 ft) deep and after over a hundred years of min­ing, its depth has hardly diminished.

The Bermudez Pitch Lake of Venezuela is a similar phenomenon. The asphalt is formed by the oxidation of the petrol­eum as it oozes on to the surface, and is used for road- surfacing, roofing, insulating and making brake linings, metal coatings, battery boxes and in paint works.

The Middle Eastern Countries:

The Middle Eastern countries together produce over a third of the world’s petroleum, the major producers being Saudi Arabia (15 per cent of the world total), Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emi­rates. Proven reserves in the region amount to more than half of the world total and thus the Middle East is likely to continue to play an important role in the oil industry for many years to come.

The technological backwardness of most of the Middle Eastern countries, combined with their’ small populations and lack of local capital has meant that international companies have been largely responsible for exploiting the oil reserves in the past while the various governments have drawn rich royal­ties. Almost all the oil is exported.

The transport of the oil by tanker or pipeline as well as a number of important refineries in the Middle East were also run by the oil companies though in most countries the governments have now taken con­trol of oil exploitation. The major pipelines run from inland fields – or fields on the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast.

Alternatively oil from the region can be transported fairly cheaply in enormous tankers by way of the Cape of Good Hope or by smaller vessels through the Suez Canal. Oil production in the Middle East is often subject to disruption.

Conflict between the Arabs and Israelis, the undefined nature of many of the desert boundaries and the conflicts between rival sheikhdoms or rival governments as in the Iraqi-Iranian war of 1980 make the oil industry rather in­secure.

Pipelines may be damaged, oil rights contested or refineries and other installations taken over. This has an important effect on world trade because of the amount of oil produced in the region. Moreover the Middle Eastern states are the most important members of OPEC and therefore fix the world price of oil. The political and economic importance of the Middle East­ern countries is therefore far greater than their size or population would suggest.

(a) Saudi Arabia:

Oil was first worked in Saudi Arabia in 1938 at the Dammam oilfield but the most impor­tant area today is around Dharan. The most produc­tive fields are at Abqaiq, Ain Dar, Ghawar, and the off-shore wells of Safaniya. Most of Saudi Arabia’s oil is exploited by Aramco and production has risen from 26 million tonnes in 1950 to over 110 million tonnes in 1967 and 460 million tonnes today.

Saudi Arabia is the second largest world producer and its reserves of 15,500 million tonnes are the largest in the world. Only thirteen out of thirty-five discovered oilfields are now in production so there is plenty of scope for even greater production.

Arabian crude oil is piped to the Persian Gulf coast for export or refining at Ras Tanura, Bahrein or other refineries, or is sent to the Mediterranean port of Saida (Sidon) by the 1,600-km (1,000-miles) long Tapline (Trans-Arabian Pipeline). This avoids the 4,800-km (3,000-mile) long tanker route through the Suez Canal or the much longer Cape of Good Hope route. Tapline was built in 1950 and transports oil to re­fineries at Saida (Sidon) from which it is re-exported in crude or refined form.

(b) Iran:

Iranian oil was first tapped in 1913. The most productive fields are in the south-west of the country near Masjid-i-Sulaiman, Naft-i-Shah, Lali, Agha Jari and Bahregan. Oil is piped to refineries at Abadan, on the Persian Gulf, and Kermanshah. Both crude oil and petroleum products are exported.

Iranian oil was drilled and exported by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., the forerunner of British Petroleum, until 1951, when, following a dispute over the levels of royalties paid to Iran, the government nationalized the industry. Pro­duction fell rapidly as a result and exports almost ceased but the dispute was settled in 1954, and pro­duction and exports again rose.

More recently the revolution following the deposition of the Shah and the war with Iraq have disrupted production and ex­ports. Prior to these upheavals output had reached 282 million tonnes or nearly a tenth of world output. Iran has 8.5 per cent of world oil reserves.

(c) Iraq:

The major oilfields in Iraq are around Kirkuk in the north of the country and have been exploited since 1927, Oil from this field is sent by pipeline to the Mediterranean ports of Banias, Syria and Tripoli, Lebanon for refining and export. Oil was once also sent by pipelines to Haifa in Israel but this pipeline has long been disused and partly destroyed as a result of Arab-Israeli conflict.

The northern oilfields are also linked to a refinery at Daura near Baghdad. New­er fields near the Gulf coast west of Basra came in­to production in 1951 and oil from these areas is processed at Basra. Mosul, in the north, also has some oilfields. Iraq accounts for about 4 per cent of world oil output and has 6 per cent of pi oven re­serves.

(d) Kuwait:

Despite its small area (only 16,000 sq. km or 5,800 sq. miles) Kuwait possesses about 14 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Its annual out­put of around 100 million tonnes represents about 3 per cent of the world total. Royalties amounting to more than 50 per cent of the profits are paid to the Sheikh who is probably the richest man in the world. As a whole the sheikhdom’s population of 520,000 has the highest per capita income in the world.

The bulk of the oil, first exploited in 1947, comes from the Burgan oilfields, the Kuwait-Arabian Neutral Zone and off-shore fields. British, American, Dutch and Japanese interests are involved in its exploitation. About 80 per cent of the oil is exported as crude oil via the port of Mina al Ahmadi which has two deep- water piers capable of accommodating five super­tankers simultaneously. The remainder is refined at the port itself.

Other Producers:

Other important producers in the Middle East are Bahrein, an island off Saudi Arabia near the Arabian oilfields; Qatar, a peninsula in the same area; and the United Arab Emirates, especially Abu Dhabi. Apart from U.A.E. these pro­ducers have a relatively small output by world stand­ards but U.A.E. produced about 3 per cent of the world’s oil, the bulk of which comes from Abu Dhabi (82 per cent of U.A.E. output).

Reserves are consid­erable, about 5 per cent of the world total. The im­portance of oil in the region is overwhelming as the small islands and states have no other resources, being arid and sparsely populated.

In fact the importance of oil to all the Middle East­ern countries cannot be overestimated. Petroleum or petroleum products account for almost all their ex­ports, the percentages being: Kuwait, almost 100 per cent; Saudi Arabia, 99 per cent; Iran, 85 per cent and Iraq, 90 per cent. The revenues and royalties from oil have enabled the Middle Eastern countries to develop their cities, economies, roads, railways, education and health facilities and so on.

They have also allowed the various sheikhs and rulers to build luxurious palaces and ultra-modern apartments. The current problem is to develop refining and petrochemicals industries with­in the producing countries. Arab investment overseas in many undertakings is also an increasing source of wealth to the Middle Eastern States.

The U.S.S.R.:

The Soviet Union has been an oil producer since 1870, the traditional oil-producing region being around the shores of the Caspian Sea. Russian oil production is the greatest in the world and is expected to increase in future as new fields in Siberia are exploited. At present it accounts for about 18 per cent of the world total.

In the 1930s three-quarters of the oil production came from the Baku fields on the Apsheron Peninsula south of the Caucasus Mountains. Another 15 per cent came from the Grozny and Maikop fields further north. In the 1950s however, vast new reserves were discovered between the Volga and the Urals and the re­gion became known as the ‘second Baku’.

It soon sur­passed the output of Baku, however, and now pro­duces about half of Russia’s oil. The main fields are in Tataria, Bashkiria and around Perm, Kuybyshev and Orenburg. The wells are of medium depth and yield both light and heavy oils. More recently, still larger reserves have been found in Asiatic U.S.S.R.

These include fields in Turkestan (Fergana Valley), the Emba and Nebit Dagh fields on the eastern side of the Cas­pian, and very important fields in the Tyumen and Tomsk regions. There is also oil in eastern Siberia on Sakhalin Island. Production from Tyumen began in 1964 and the region now produces more than a quarter of national output. Oil has also been found in Bye­lorussia and natural gas comes from the Ukraine. The U.S.S.R. is the world’s second largest natural gas pro­ducer.

Most of the oil is refined in the drilling regions at Baku, Grozny, Perm and Kuybyshev, and a vast net­work of pipelines transports oil and refined products to most parts of western U.S.S.R. Novosibirsk and Irkutsk are also linked to the major fields by pipeline.

The U.S.S.R. exports much oil by pipeline to the eastern European countries such as Hungary, Czechos­lovakia and East Germany as well as to Italy and to Japan. Tankers from the Black Sea ports also take oil to Egypt, Cuba and some other countries.

Countries of Africa:

Much of central and southern Africa is relatively poor in oil because it consists of ancient, often crystalline rocks, but in recent years some parts of Africa have proved to be very rich in oil. Most im­portant is the Saharan region in the north where oil was found in Algeria and Libya in 1956 and 1957. Egypt also has moderate oil supplies. Nigeria has large reserves in the Niger delta region, and Gabon has also found small quantities.

(a) Libya:

Libya has reserves of both oil and natural gas at Dahra, Beda, Zelten, and several other fields south of the Gulf of Sirte, as well as in scattered fields to the east and west. After a long, difficult search in the hostile desert conditions, oil was first found in 1957. The wells are deep and operating costs are high, but the North African fields have the advantage of being near the European markets. Both oil and gas are exported and oil output is around 100 million tonnes a year.

(b) Algeria:

Algerian oil and gas, first found in 1956, occur in three main regions; Hassi R’Mel, Hassi Mas- saoud and Edjele. The oil and gas are piped to the coast at La Skhirra in Tunisia and at Arzew and Bougie in Algeria. Refineries have been built at Algiers and at Hassi Massaoud.

Hassi R’Mel is one of the world’s largest natural gas fields. The gas is sent to Arzew, where the world’s largest liquefaction plant processes the gas before shipment. Both Algeria and Libya have nationalized their oil and gas industries.

(c) Nigeria:

The search for oil began in 1937 but resources were not found until 1957. Most of the oil comes from the delta region and oilfields continue off shore. There is a refinery at Port Harcourt. Both oil and natural gas are exploited and Nigeria now produces about 100 million tonnes per year and is a major exporter to Europe, North and South America.

Asia:

Apart from production in South-West Asia (the Middle East) and the vast reserves of Asiatic U.S.S.R., oil production in Asia has been rather limited, the chief producer being Indonesia. However exploration especially in China has increased Asian output.

(a) South-East Asia:

Indonesia has greatly expanded oil production in the 1970s to over 80 million tonnes per year, most of which comes from Sumatra. Further prospecting is still going on. The chief fields are Palembang, Jambi, Minas (near Pekan Baru), and around Pengkalan (near Medan). Oil is refined at Palembang and Jambi or is sent to Singapore. Indonesia also has oil reserves in Kalimantan (Borneo Island), at Balik- papan and Tanjung and also at Klamono in Irian Jaya. Brunei on the northern Borneo coast has large reserves of oil and natural gas in comparison with its size.

The oil is refined at Lutong, Sarawak, or sent to Japan or Singapore. The gas is shipped to Japan. The oil comes from the Seria field on shore and the off-shore field of Kuala Belait. Off-shore wells are the major producers. Despite its own lack of oil, Singapore, with four or more refineries, is a major oil centre. It is the base for exploration in the region as well as for processing and re-exporting the oil and oil products. Burma is another South-East Asian country with some oil.

The main wells are at Singu, Yenang- yaung, Indaw and Minbu and there is a refinery at Syriam near Rangoon. Malaysia has oilfields off shore of Sarawak and off the East Coast of Peninsular Ma­laysia. Output is not large by world standards but allows the country to be self-sufficient in oil and to export oil and, by 1982 liquefied natural gas, mainly to Japan. Oil is a major export earner but Malaysia’s reserves are not very large and a policy of gradual ex­ploitation is being followed to conserve energy for the future.

(b) East Asia:

Great progress has been made in China in recent years and the output has risen steadily throughout the 1970s to an estimated 100 million tonnes per year. Reserves are estimated to be as large as those of the U.S.A. though some reports suggest far larger figures. Reserves of natural gas are also reported to be very large although very little is used to supply China’s energy needs.

The future of the oil industry in China depends on how much of the grow­ing production is used internally to improve power supplies, e.g. to mechanize agriculture, and how much is available for export.

Much of China’s oil comes from the north-east of the country and is a heavy, waxy crude oil most suit­able for heavy fuel. Daqing (Taching) is the largest field and has large reserves. The Dakang (Takang) field near Beijing (Peking) is potentially even larger and continues off shore. Other northern fields are at Shengli in Shandong (Shantung) and Panshan.

Further west one of the older fields at Yumen is now declining but there are large fields in Xinjiang (Sinkiang) at Karamai, Dushanzi (Tushantze) and in the far west oil has been found at Kashi (Kashgar), where because of distance, development is difficult but where the crude oil is of better quality. There are also extensive off-shore oil deposits.

The pace of development in China is slow and steady not only because the Chinese lack experience in the oil industry but because they aim at higher re­covery rates than in the West. By injecting water to maintain pressure they hope to keep fields productive longer and to extract about 50 per cent of reserves compared with more normal recovery rates of 30—40 per cent in the West.

Moreover settlements related to oil extraction are considered important and must be built up as self-sufficient communities with ag­ricultural as well as oil development. This will ensure the continuance of such communities when the oil runs out.

Japan has small oil reserves at Akita and Niigata as well as newer resources at Yamagata, Mitsuke and Yabase and off shore in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea off the Ryukyu Islands.

Japan is a major oil importer from all parts of the world and there are refineries at all the major ports, and well-developed petrochemicals industries.

Parts of Australasia:

After a long search which for many years was un­successful, oil and gas have both been found in signifi­cant quantities in Australia. Annual production is about 20 million tonnes. Oil comes from Moonie in Queensland, near Alice Springs in Northern Territory, off Port Hedland in Western Australia and from the Bass Strait.

Gas is found in more areas including north of Perth, at Alice Springs, in south-eastern Queensland, the Bass Strait, and north-eastern South Australia. New Zealand has also found both oil and gas, but out­put is insignificant.

Countries of South America:

Apart from Venezuela the South American coun­tries have relatively little oil, though this is due more to lack of intensive exploration in the remote forested regions of sparse population than to lack of suitable sedimentary basins where oil may occur. In Colombia oil is found in the Caribbean coastal lowlands and in the Magdalena Valley. Ecuador has oil in its coastal lowlands and its Amazonian region and Peru has oil both on the coast and inland.

The oldest wells are at Zorritos near Tumbes but more oil now comes from a 130-km (80-mile) long field at Lobitos and Negritos near Talara. There is an oil refinery at Talara, which is in the north of the country. Oil is also found east of the Andes in the upper Amazon Basin at Ganzo Azul and is sent to the refinery at Iquitos on the Amazon for export down river.

Bolivia, too, has oil resources in its remote eastern region at Camiri, Rio Bermejo and Sanandita and reserves are thought to be very large. Pipelines run to Sucre and Cochabamba, where there are refineries. Chile has oil in the far south near Punta Arenas and on Tierra del Fuego and refineries and petrochemicals industries at Valparaiso and Concepcion.

Argentina, the largest South American producer after Venezuela, has oil in the south at Comodoro Rivadavia and near Neuquen; near Mendoza, in the west; and in the north-west at Oran and Tartagal in an extension of the field that underlies Bolivia. The most important fields are those at Comodoro Riva­davia, which also produce gas, and those in the north. Both regions are linked to Buenos Aires by pipeline.

Development of the oil industry is hindered in many Latin American states by rather unstable political conditions and an unwillingness to allow large-scale exploration by international companies. Paraguay has no oil resources but Brazil has recently found significant oil pools.

Countries of Europe:

European oil production is very small, especially when the continent’s enormous, oil requirements are taken into consideration. For many years the largest producer was Romania, where oil occurs east of the Carpathian mountains at Ploesti, and was first drilled in the 1850s.

The oil is refined at Ploesti but as oil reserves are declining, oil has to be imported to main­tain the refinery’s production. Romania has also de­veloped very large resources of natural gas at Ploesti and in central Transylvania. The other European countries with small oilfields are Austria, Hungary, France (at Lacq), West Germany (in Bavaria and Schoonebeck), Poland (in Galicia), the Netherlands (Schoonebeck), Turkey and Yugoslavia.

The most important oil producers in Europe, however, are Brit­ain and Norway both of which have large reserves in their sections of the North Sea and their economic zones on the borders of the North Atlantic. The U.K. is the largest oil producer, with about 40 million tonnes per year and has enough oil for her own needs.

Even more important than oil in the North Sea and its environs are reserves of natural gas. Netherlands (over 6 per cent of the world total), the U.K. (3 per cent) and West Germany (more than 1 per cent) have a large production which is used ex­tensively especially for domestic fuel supplies.

More than half the Netherlands energy requirements are supplied by natural gas and 16 and 14 per cent re­spectively of the requirements of the U.K. and West Germany are met by gas. Other major natural gas producers in Europe are Norway, Italy, Romania, France, and Hungary.

Europe is criss-crossed by a dense network of pipe­lines linking to the U.S.S.R. system in the east, carry­ing crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas. Europe is also a major centre of the petrochemicals industry. The major locations of petrochemicals industries are at importing ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp and in industrial regions such as north­ern England and the German Rhinelands.