Standing against the international oil cartel: the independent line (1953)

What not to depend on, and what to be free of

The heart of this decision is not any single venture or year but a consistent stance. Neither the cartel of the international majors nor the domestic industry’s coordinated output restrictions — Idemitsu Sazo chose a path that submitted to no external control and no peer-group order, dealing directly with producing countries instead. The audacity of the Nissho Maru affair and the obstinacy of the walkout from the Petroleum Association share a single root: the conviction that cheap crude should be secured by one’s own hand and delivered to the consumer. Sacrificing short-term security of supply and peace within the industry for the sake of a principle gave the choice a distinctiveness with few parallels in post-war Japanese oil.

The principle of independence has nonetheless been made to compromise with reality over time. The preferred-share issue that preserved non-listed status, the stock market listing forty years later, and the merger with Showa Shell carried over the founding family’s objections all show what it costs to keep that flag flying. When domestic demand thins and decarbonization unsettles the position of oil itself, one company’s independence is not enough to stand on. Even so, Idemitsu’s refusal to lean easily on either foreign capital or the state, and its insistence on opening the way through its own procurement and its own judgement, leaves standing the question of what a company should depend on and what it should be free of.