The importance of oil to the modern world is unique in character and incredibly far-reaching in scope. It is a singularly autonomous variable in the world economy, just as, if not more potent and influential than Federal Reserve decisions, the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, conditions in the U.S or stock market indexes. Oil availability and price affect the output capacity, rate of growth and level of inflation throughout the world. In the modern world, oil affects transportation, heating, production and the military. One would be hard pressed to find a substance or phenomena in world history that has held a comparable position.

Petroleum is a nonrenewable fossil fuel. It is the product of a multi-million year geological process in which organic material is transformed in underground reservoirs. The fact that we can not produce petroleum is an underlying factor that defines the nature of the oil industry.

Oil...