Daniel Yergin

In 1973, finally, the U.S.

government did gave an antitrust waiver to the companies to try and have a united front in the negotiations.

But remember, it got all tied up with geopolitics.

It got tied up with Arab-Israeli wars and so forth.

So it wasn't just about oil.

There were other things going on and the use of what was called the oil weapon.

Why did it have such a huge effect?

This was completely unprecedented, unexpected, so it created a panic, and it was also right towards, you know, as the final months were coming of the Nixon administration,

So it got all tangled up.

And then we had the system of price controls and allocation controls, which made it much harder for the market to adapt.

I mean, one of the lessons to me from the prize is actually...

enabling markets to adjust because when governments try and control them and make decisions and allocate and governments, even in the United States and some states wanna do that today, it accentuates shortages and disruptions and price spikes.

But the tendency is to,

want to control them.

But I think there was just a, you know, there was far less knowledge about the market where supplies were, there was no sort of coordination.

Now there's much greater knowledge and transparency.

I mean, it was just,

And you had what were called integrated companies, the same company that produced the oil in the Middle East, put it on their tankers and sent it to their refineries in the United States or Europe to their gas stations.

And that system is gone.

When you see the names of the big oil companies on a gas station, if you're not driving an electric car and you pull in, odds are that it's not owned by that company there.