International records / Foreign Relations of the United States

19. Paper Prepared in the Department of State

estern Europe. Production in Libya, for example, in late 1966 reached the level of a major Persian Gulf producer and actually surpassed Iraq’s output, owing to the cut-back in Iraqi production because of Syrian blocking of the pipelines. Algeria and Nigeria have also become major suppliers to Europe, and Nigeria has the potential to become a Middle East scale producer. Intensive exploration of the Northwest European-North Sea gas fields is being pressed forward. Soviet oil is being bought in increasing quantities by several European countries. On the other hand, the Middle East producing count…