Regulations in the Energy Industry: Financial, Economic and Legal Implications, Ed. by André Dorsman, Özgür Arslan-Ayaydin, James Thewissen, Springer, 2020
The ownership, production, and transportation of energy became integral parts of global discussions about security, politics, economics, and finance after the oil crises of the 1970s. The first such crisis from October 1973 to March 1974, when Arab oil-producing countries except Iraq curtailed production and embargoed the sale of oil to countries that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War, served as a wake- up call for Western political and strategic communities (Paust and Blaustein 1974). Ending the era of “cheap” energy and turning it into a geopolitical strategic tool (Licklider 1988; Yergin 2008). The embargo forced energy-hungry Western coun- tries to implement policies to diversify their energy sources and their origins (Ediger and Berk 2018). Attention turned to (1) tapping national resources wherever possi- ble, including hydrocarbons, nuclear, and alternative energies, to better coordinate consumer policies, and (2) securing the continuous flow of hydrocarbons from their origin. While the first aim led to the creation of the International Energy Agency in 1974 as the coordinating institution for consumer countries, the second aim led the USA to prepare contingency plans to intervene in oil-rich Middle Eastern states should a similar crisis reoccur (Kissinger 1982; Ikenberry 1986).