provements through automation. Environmental protection laws and tax laws are the political-legal factors of greatest significance for the industry. The sociocultural factors of the greatest significance to the industry are life-style changes and population growth rates.
Within the context of Porter's five-forces analysis, competitive forces within the industry are of the greatest importance. Over the coming five-to-10 years, one should not anticipate any major changes in industry structure. Industry structure may be expected to change when alternative energy products become viable substitutes for the products of the integrated petroleum industry. Viable substitute products in the form of alternative energy sources should not be anticipated prior to 2010.
One year after the Spindletop Hill field gusher came in 1901, the Texas Fuel Company was formed (Moskowitz, Katz, and Levering, 1985, p. 549). By 1904, the Texas Fuel Company was producing five-percent of all the oil drilled in the United States. In 1905, the company opened a sales office in Europe, and by 1908 the company operations covered all by five states (all in the Far West) in the United States. The company's network of sales office provided the nucleus of a service station chain that was established in the wake of large scale automobile production in the United States. Texaco became an international producer of oil in the mid-1930s, and by 1980, the company was the second largest oil company in the United States. Texaco's sales in 1995 are projected to be $35 billion, and sales are expected to reach $48 billion by 1998. The company employs approximately 38,000 persons (Swort, 1994, p. 427).
Texaco started out as a rogue company whose owners were willing to do just about anything to get ahead (Moskowitz, Katz,
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