Oil and the British Foreign Process

At the end of 1976 and the beginning of 1977, the Open University recorded a large number of interviews with politicians, civil servants, company representatives and academics with an interest in oil. Some of this material has been taken for use in programmes connected with the University's second level course, " Decision making in Britain." As always happens with Open University interviews, much of this material, including some complete interviews, remains unused. This would normally be destroyed, but we have arranged to retain copies (mainly audio but some audio-visual) of all the interviews and to store them in the University Library for interested individuals to come and use. These interviews form part of a wider collection of material which we hope will be useful to those researching into British politics. This paper uses that material explicitly and refers to the extracts by the phrase " OU Archive." Apart from these formal interviews, I have had a number of informal meetings with civil servants concerned with oil policy from the Department of Energy and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I should like to thank them for sparing time to see me and for explaining the nature of their work.

Cf. J.P. Barber , Who Makes British Foreign Policy (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1976), esp. Chap. 14.

Ibid. p. 117.

Ibid. p. 119.

Responsibility for oil questions had resided with the regional departments or the Economic Relations Department until the middle 1960s. Initially the separate department was called the International Oil Department and it shared responsibility for oil questions with the Economic Relations Department. In 1967 the prefix " International " was dropped and the Department was given sole responsibility for oil questions. In 1974, it was merged with the wider-ranging Energy Department.

One interesting aspect of the separateness of the FCO is that it refers to the working units within it as Departments, while the Home Civil Service talks of Divisions.

Antony Kershaw in House of Commons Debates, January 24, 1972.

Exxon (Esso), Gulf, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil of California (Chevron). 9.

For a breakdown of the ownership links between the major oil companies in the major oil producing countries in the Middle East, see A. Sampson , The Seven Sisters ( London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975 ), pp. 136 and 169.

Apart from the book mentioned above, he also wrote a long profile of Shell in his earlier work. The Anatomy of Britain.

This information and much that follows concerning the role of civil servants and ministers in particular incidents was given to me on a non-attributable basis by former and present civil servants.

R.H.S. Crossman , Diaries of a Cabinet Minister ( London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1976), Vol. II, p. 413.

H.C. Debs., July 25, 1967.

Cf. Fuel White Paper, HMSO, Cmnd. 3438 (1967), para. 26.

Guardian, April 25, 1967.

As Anthony Sampson has pointed out, " I think by and large the British Government has been accustomed to leave these problems in the hands of the two major oil companies. There had been a tradition in the Foreign Office and the Government in general to allow BP and Shell more or less to look after the problem themselves." (OU Archive).

The single Petroleum Division has been replaced by five new divisions: Petroleum Production, Petroleum Engineering, Continental Shelf Policy, Oil Policy (Home), and Community and International Policy. To these should be added the Glasgow-based Offshore Supplies Office.

Interestingly, a number of posts within the Department of Energy including the Head of the CIP division are filled by former FCO officials who were seconded to the Department at its inception in 1974. This was seen partly as offsetting the lack of international expertise of the domestic ministry when it came to EEC affairs.

See, for example, P. Chapman , Fuel's Paradise (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).

First Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, Session 1972-73. (HMSO).

Joe Haines, his Press Secretary, relates how he was obliged to breach convention by meeting Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia in person at London Airport. See J. Haines , The Politics of Power (London: Coronet, 1977), p. 11.

H.C. Debs., November 10, 1975.

Ibid. December 4, 1975.

See, for example, the leader in the Sunday Times, December 8, 1974.

The Times, February 13, 1973.

The Times, January 9, 1974.

Commission of the European Communities (1974), Towards a new energy policy strategy for the European Community, COM (74), 550 final/2, Brussels, EEC.

See, for example, Andrew Shonfield's article in The Times, November 12, 1973, entitled " Dutch oil ban a test of faith for EEC."