The Nobel Family was so eager to swallow up the industries East Africa had shed in East Africa because it wanted to counter the American conglomerates and consolidate its own advantages.
In the past, competition over the Baku oilfields had been extremely fierce. The Nobel Family, the Rothschild family, and several small local Russian oil companies had formed a bloc to oppose American and East African capital.
That was right. In their eyes, both the United States and East Africa were threats. In recent years, the value of the Baku oilfields had risen ever higher, with total oil production accounting for more than sixty percent of all European output. During the war, it had become an industry reaping outrageous profits.
Although the interests of investors in the Baku oilfields, such as the Nobel Family and the Rothschild family, were not entirely aligned, they had operated there for a long time. Naturally, they did not want the two latecomers, the United States and East Africa, to take a slice of the pie.
Take the Nobel Family, for instance. It had begun investing in Baku's oil industry in the 1870s, while East Africa had only just been founded at the time, much less capable of making large-scale overseas investments.
Thus, Baku's earliest local powers had mainly competed with European capital. Later, after the rise of the American economy, they began treating American capital as their opponent.
East African capital entered Baku relatively late. By then, the developed oilfields had essentially all been divided up, so East Africa could only invest in local refineries to reduce costs.
East Africa imported Baku oil mainly from companies without East African backing. After all, the oilfields were basically in their hands, and East African companies had no interest in searching for new oilfields locally.
Therefore, cooperation