Pre 1973 timeline - 1971

1971

• 1971 Since the agreements of 1971 and 1973, OPEC oil is exclusively quoted in US dollars. This created a permanent demand for dollars on the international exchange markets.
• 1971 January 12: Negotiations begin in Teheran between 6 Persian Gulf oil producing countries and 22 oil companies.
• 1971 February 3: OPEC mandates "total embargo" against any company that rejects the 55 percent tax rate.
• 1971 February 14: Tehran agreement signed. Companies accept 55 percent tax rate, immediate increase in posted prices, and further successive increases. 
• 1971 February 24: Algeria nationalizes 51 percent of French oil concessions.
  March 1971, four months before Nixon closed the Gold window, the "permanent" U.S. debt ceiling had been frozen at $US 400 Billion.  
• 1971 April 2: Libya concludes five weeks of negotiations with Western oil companies inTripoli on behalf of itself, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Iraq. Agreement raises posted prices of oil delivered to Mediterranean from $2.55 to $3.45 per barrel; provides for a 2.5 percent annual price increase plus inflation allowance; raises tax rate from a range of 50-58 percent to 60 percent of posted price. 
• July 31: Venezuela's Hydrocarbons Reversion Law mandates gradual transfer to government ownership of all "unexploited concession areas" by 1974 and "all their residual assets" by 1983. 
• 1971 May 9:  153. Paper Prepared in the Department of the Treasury
• August 15: U.S. Government institutes Phase I price controls. Invoking the powers granted to the president by the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, President Richard Nixon orders 90-day nationwide freeze on all wages, prices, salaries and rents. President Richard Nixon unilaterally suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold, effectively ending the gold standard. The United States then entered negotiations with its industrialized allies to appreciate their own currencies, in response to this change.
• 1971 August 17: 171. Memorandum of Conversation
• 1971 September 22: OPEC directs members to negotiate price increases to offset the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. 
• 1971 November: U.S. Phase II price controls begin. Plan is to allow for gradual 2-3 percent annual price increases, however, domestic petroleum prices remain at Phase I levels. 
• 1971 November 27: 209. Information Memorandum From the President's Assistant for International Economic Affairs (Peterson) to President Nixon
• 1971 December 5: Libya nationalizes British Petroleum concession. 
• 1971 Nixon Shock, when the US unilaterally suspended the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold and made the transition to a fiat currency system. The last currency to be divorced from gold was the Swiss Franc in 2000.  
• 1971 December: The Smithsonian Agreement  that ended the fixed exchange rates established at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944. The Group of Ten agreed to appreciate their currencies against the United States dollar. 
• 1971 December 31: 212. Editorial Note