Volume I of this History surveys at some length the institutional origins of the International Energy Agency in the 1973-1974 oil crisis, and examines the 1974 I.E.P. Agreement and other oil consumer actions which established the Agency as an operational  intergovernmental institution. Volume I also considers the most important IEA relationships, the internal structure of the Agency, and the institutional arrangements which enabled the Agency to develop over the years into an effective instrument for energy policy co-operation among its Members.