The availability of jet fuel over the next two decades

The inclusion of the future availability of jet fuel in a symposium entitled “Constraints on Air Transport Growth” implies recognition of the fact that oil industry developments of 1973/4 have precipitated structural changes in the relationship between the Organisation of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC), the international oil companies and the oil consuming countries which are of major relevance to the world as a whole. The abrupt transfer of power over crude oil prices, output and investments from the international oil companies to OPEC governments and the four‐ to fivefold increase in crude oil f.o.b. prices between third quarter 1973 and the present can be thought of as a “discontinuity” in the evolution of the oil industry which is bound to engender uncertainty about the continuity and adequacy of future oil supplies.