| Summary: | Robert Mabro has always been a realist. Maybe, if he had been brought up in Beirut rather than Alexandria, he would have been a cynic. Anyway, by 1969 he was, via SOAS, an economist in Oxford, at St Antony’s. The later 1960s and the 1970s were, of course, the years in which OPEC was at its peak of influence and energy, in its various manifestations, was at the forefront of public awareness. For an economist who happened to be fluent in English, French, and Arabic, energy was an obvious interest to cultivate. This happened also to be the period in which Shell was developing, under Pierre Wack, its scenario planning. In 1973 the company was in the position of needing to develop a better understanding of the thinking, aspirations, and motivations of oil producers, particularly those of the Arabian Gulf – while Mabro lacked any real understanding of the oil companies and their objectives. So, in 1973, Shell Planning arranged for Mabro to join them for a year and both parties benefited greatly.
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