In the aftermath of the 1953 coup d’etat, the government of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi embraced oil exports as an important source of economic and political power. Revenues derived from oil exports allowed the shah to fund a military build-up, an expansion of the central state apparatus, and an ambitious slate of economic development programs. But changes in the global oil system, linked with rising resource nationalism and the emergence of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) in 1960, threatened to complicate Iran’s place in the international energy order. Moreover, the shah himself was torn over how to manage his own oil ambitions—whether to work with the international oil companies and maximize Iran’s oil production, or strike out on an independent path in order to seize the mantle of “petro-nationalist” away from his former adversary, nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh. This paper examines Iran’s evolving place in the global oil order between 1953 and 1965, drawing on the diaries of Pahlavi officials, diplomatic documents gleaned from US, British, and oil company archives. It emphasizes the divisions within the shah’s own governments, as varying factions led by OPEC secretary general Fuad Ruhani and Prime Minister Asadollah ‘Alam clashed over policy.The paper illustrates how the history of Iran cannot be separated from the history of the international fossil fuel economy.