SIX KINGDOMS OF OIL
The Persian Gulf Strikes it Rich ON a lonely stretch of sandy, salt-encrusted coastline ranging from Oman to Iran, in lands so parched that clear drinking water is a luxury, the greatest treasure hunt of modern times goes on. Bordering the Persian Gulf, sometimes thousands of feet below the surface, lies the greatest pool of oil in the world. So far, 50 billion barrels of oil reserves, worth at least $100 billion, have been found—and this is only the beginning.
This is no gold rush for amateurs. Already the West has invested $2 billion in the Persian Gulf area; it is the biggest overseas venture of U.S. big business. The leases are the subject of high-level intrigue; ordinarily friendly powers such as the U.S. and Britain compete feverishly, if covertly, for a sheik's favor: each Cadillac presented by a friendly U.S. company seems to be met by a Rolls-Royce coming from London.
The Persian Gulf's capacity to pump up oil strains belief. Within less than a year after Mossadegh's fanatics shut down the world's largest refinery at Abadan, other Middle East fields have not only made up the deficit but increased the total by more than 100,000 barrels.
The Middle East's 900 oil wells, most of them drilled in the past 10 to 15 years, have already produced as much oil as the entire output of the U.S. during its first 60 years of oil production. Since 1938, Middle East oil production has expanded 650 times. Moreover, the treasure gushes out of individual Middle East wells at a tremendously faster rate than elsewhere: the average for each well is 3,700 barrels a day, compared with 201 a day for Venezuela, eleven a day for the U.S.
Such figures mean fantastic profits to the oil companies and important strategic benefits to the West. But their impact is even greater on a land which has been slumbering since Nebuchadnezzar. Kings, sheiks and shahs have become the new tycoons—some of the world's richest men in some of the world's poorest countries. A civilization of DC-6s, Parker "513" and air-conditioned trailers has descended on proud, backward peoples.
Before the Mid-East's oil age, the tribal Arabs had a morality and political system which suited their severe lives crudely but comparatively well. The poorest Bedouin could get an audience with the great sheik and a handout from his kitchens. The mistreated slaves could flee to the local ruler, demand protection under the law of the Koran.
Then came the oil companies, bringing industrialization and cities, and breaking down feudal tribal relationships. The outpouring of Western wealth (at the rate of $200 million a year) is destroying old values before new ones can be substituted. Oil money expanded the middle classes; it educated them, and created a class hostile to economic domination by foreigners. Oil money increased the gap between rich & poor, and gave the poor something to covet.
The Middle East is no longer a place of accepted inequities.