Brian Donovan

WASHINGTON, D.C.–During the puzzling oil crisis of 1979, while oil companies and their critics argued over the reasons for gas lines and soaring prices, one little known public official, Dr. Joachim W. Koenig, had more inside information about what was going on than anyone else outside the industry. A gas line during the 1979 oil crisis. As emergency oil allocations coordinator for the International Energy Agency (IEA), Koenig became the closest thing the world has ever had to an international oil ombudsman, and his outlook on the crisis, outlined in classified IEA documents, differs substantially from the version given the public by U.S. government and industry spokesmen. Koenig’s findings raise new questions about the actions of major oil companies during the crisis. The IEA documents portray the world’s oil consuming countries as the losers in a struggle for information on why the world price of oil was doubling and what, if anything, the countries could have been doing to stop it. Contrived Shortage   Other internal IEA, Department of Energy (DOE) and oil company documents