Today, in the context of the fourth energy transition and the simultaneous increase of problems in the global fuel and energy complex, it is important for humanity to take into account all the experience accumulated by it to date, including negative experience, when composing and implementing various development plans / economic projects. In particular, it is necessary to avoid repeating the mistakes that were associated with the beginning and serious consequences of the 1970s energy crisis. This article attempts to reveal Comecon internal assessment of the oil market conditions on the eve of the 1973—1974 oil shock. The author of the article for the first time publishes and introduces into scientific circulation an analytical document prepared in the mid-1973 by Soviet specialists for Comecon Oil Bureau “The situation in the capitalist oil market in 1972 — the first half of 1973 and the prospects for its development”, on the basis of which interested Comecon member states worked out a common short-term strategy for the purchase of petroleum outside “the world system of socialism”. The published document confirms Comecon good awareness (in general but not always in detail) of what was happening to the oil and gas industry of capitalist countries in the seventies. The archeographic processing of “The situation in the capitalist oil market in 1972 — the first half of 1973 and the prospects for its development” was carried out in accordance with the generally accepted rules for the publication of historical documents.