In the early 1980's, the search for oil was pursued actively in almost any place where capital could be mobilized. Private oil companies were both making record profits and spending record amounts of capital on securing new sources of supply. The momentum for exxploration, especially outside of OPEC, was considerable. This momentum was spurred on by the desires of governments to improve their own balance of payments, by the hopes of oil companies to secure new sources of supply outside the politically vulnerable OPEC countries (where government policies were, in any event, inhospitable to foreign investment), and by the expectations generated by new discoveries on the North Slope of Alaska, in the North Sea and Mexico. In fact, there is an interesting comparison between the growth in OPEC and non-OPEC reserves before and after the 1973-74 pricing escalations. OPEC's proved reserves grew at 6% per annum before that watershed year and at 0.5% for the remainder of the 1970's. Non-OPEC reserves, on the other hand, grew by 2.6% in the period 1967-73 and by more than 4% annually since then.