太平洋戦争以前の日本におけるスタンダード・ヴァキューム・オイルの事業活動

-七つの論点をめぐって-

抄録

The purpose of this essay is to make clear the activities of the Japan Branch of Standard-Vacuum Oil Company (SVOC) and its predecessors, Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY), Vacuum Oil Company, and Socony-Vacuum Corporation, before World War II. In this essay I examine the following seven points at issue.
1. Why did SOCONY and Vacuum establish the Japan Branch in the early 1890s?
2. Why did SOCONY and Vacuum succeed in penetrating into the Japan's petroleum market?
3. Why did SOCONY start producing and refining Japan's domestic crude oil in 1900 and stop them in 1911?
4. Why did SOCONY's sales share in the Japan's petroleum market decrease during the 1910s and 1920s?
5. How did the establishment of Socony-Vacuum in 1931 influence the Japan Branch?
6. How did the establishment of SVOC in 1933 influence the Japan Branch?
7. How did SVOC move against the Japan's Petroleum Industry Law of 1934, which persecuted foreign petroleum companies?
These examinations show one general conclusion : In case of analyzing activities of foreign companies in Japan, we must take notice of their world-wide (at least Asia-wide) strategy as well as the peculiarity of the Japan's market.