<p>With the continuing and seemingly unabated increase in the prices of oil and oil products, the clamor for government to do something to alleviate the situation has escalated. Amidst this clamor, the proposal to create a National Oil Exchange has sprung forward.</p>
<p>The authors argues that it seems to have been forgotten that the market has not always been regulated. For many years before martial law and the first oil crisis in the 1970s, the industry was a relatively free one with as much as four refiners and six marketing companies. The country apparently got along well with such a set-up. Ironically, the years of regulation and control since then have left us with the highly concentrated oligopolistic market structure for the industry, i.e., few players with large market shares. It is very difficult to deconstruct that and return to a more competitive market overnight. We need to be realistic and patient and give the oil deregulation law enough time to take effect.</p>