“Black gold” or oil is extracted from oil reservoirs or oil fields and transformed through oil pipelines to refineries. The energy need for this raw material has been known since the earliest days. Throughout history, the demand for and supply of oil and its derivatives has varied from year to year and as a consequence has caused many changes in the price of oil on the market. These changes have been the cause of many conflicts throughout history and have influenced the shaping of world politics and relations between states. The economic development of the world and Croatia has depended on and depends on the efficiency of finding new sources of this form of energy. Considering the price and consumption of oil and petroleum products in the world and the Republic of Croatia, experts have carried out research that has predicted the planned consumption of oil and petroleum products by 2050. The results of these studies are presented in the paper. Given the oil-geological peculiarities of our country and the aforementioned explorations, the Republic of Croatia is expanding its exploitation fields from the Pannonian basin to the unexplored areas of the Adriatic. As the world's oil reserves are far higher than those of the Republic of Croatia, experts in our homeland are obliged to provide sufficient quantities of oil in the future. The paper highlights the specifics of the oil market and the largest oil producers and consumers in the world.