An Economic Geography of Oil, first published in 1963, analyses the reasons behind the spatial distribution of the different sectors of the world oil industry. In the first part of the book, Peter Odell examines the pattern of the world supply of oil, showing the important changes that took place between 1945 and the early 1960s and highlighting the physical, economic, political and organizational factors which contributed to these developments. In the second part, Odell analyses the relationship between oil and other sources of energy, together with the more fundamental relationship between...

The oil industry is the world's largest commercial enterprise. Its extent is global; international issues are consistently influenced by considerations of oil production and consumption, while the international communications networks of the larger oil companies rival those of many nations. In this, the eighth edition of Oil and World Power, published in 1986, Peter Odell explains the complexities of this gigantic empire and its influence on the world. The far-reaching chapters discuss the U.S.A, the Soviet Union, O.P.E.C., Japan and the oil-consuming countries of the developing world....