With regard to the situation in Asia, the writer believes that the next decade will witness a steady increase in the output of petroleum in India, and the probable development of one or more important oil fields in Persia and possibly of fields in Asia Minor, Turkestan and China. In Oceania the same period will doubtless witness a material increase in the production of petroleum in Japan and Formosa and in the Dutch East Indies, together with the possible opening of new fields in Papua. Africa will doubtless receive considerable attention from oil operators in the next ten years, but on the basis of available evidence the results obtained in that period will probably not be large enough to affect the petroleum situation of the world. POLITICAL CONTROL OF PRODUCTION The status of the political control of the world’s output of petroleum in 1917, as determined by the best data now available, is indicated in the table following. The accompanying diagram (Figure 1) shows the proportion of the world’s production of petroleum contributed annually by each of the principal producing countries in each of the last ten years. TABLE 2.--POLITICAL CONTROL OF THE WORLD’S PRODUCTION OF PETROLEUM IN 1917 -----------------+-----------+----------+------------- Source of | | |Country production |Quantity of| |exercising | production|Percentage|political | (barrels)| of total |control -----------------+-----------+----------+------------- United States |335,315,601| 66.17 |United States Russia | 69,000,000| 13.62 |Russia Mexico | 55,292,770| 10.91 |Mexico Dutch East Indies| 12,928,955| 2.55 |Holland India | 8,078,843| 1.59 |Great Britain Persia | 6,856,063| 1.36 |Persia Galicia | 5,965,447| 1.18 |Poland (?) Japan and Formosa| 2,898,654| 0.57 |Japan Roumania | 2,681,870| 0.55 |Roumania Peru | 2,533,417| 0.50 |Peru Trinidad | 1,599,455| 0.32 |Great Britain Argentina | 1,144,737| 0.23 |Argentina Egypt | 1,008,750| 0.20 |Great Britain Germany | 995,764| 0.20 |Germany Canada | 205,332| 0.04 |Great Britain Venezuela | 127,743| 0.03 |Venezuela Italy | 50,334| 0.01 |Italy Cuba | 19,167| |Cuba +-----------+----------+ |506,702,902| 100.00 | -----------------+-----------+----------+------------- [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Proportion of the world’s output of petroleum contributed annually by each of the chief producing countries, 1908-1917.]