In early 1956 the Petroleum Department of The Chase Manhattan Bank published a lengthy study entitled "Future Growth and Financial Requirements of the World Petroleum Industry. "This report was the result of a year's work by a group of petroleum experts working under the guidance of Joseph E. Pogue, distinguished petroleum economist. Its aim was stated succinctly in the first paragraph as follows:
"The purpose of this report is threefold:
To measure the tremendous growth that lies ahead for the world petroleum industry;
To determine in broad terms the changing patterns of supply which will be necessary to satisfy the anticipated needs; and
To express the growth in terms of capital required and examine the ways in which the capital funds may be generated."
So far as is known this was the first published long-range report which estimated the probable growth in demand for a full decade ahead, then postulated the pattern of supply for these needs and determined the capital requirements. Doubtless some large petroleum companies were making such studies for their private use at that time, but none were published. But now we have a multitude of forecasts, for every large company has an economics and planning department which makes forward estimates each year, and a summary of expected demand growth for five or ten years is included in most annual reports.
In 1955 The Chase Petroleum Department became quite interested in the longer range outlook because it appeared the growth in petroleum consumption might continue upward at the same dynamic rate experienced since World War II— nearly 6% in the United States and twice that abroad. Furthermore, tremendous new low-cost discoveries of crude oil in the Middle East, Canada and Venezuela had been brought into production and were seeking a market not only in Europe, but in the United States. And at about this time most large oil companies were recognizing the rapidly increasing- finding costs in the United States and the inadequate return on such investments. Because of the need to meet the voracious product requirements of the first post-war decade, the money requirements for capital
