1997 has been a red-letter year for the oil and gas industry. Thus, the benefits of both oil companies and service and supply ones have rocketed, while their market values have kept shooting up. Actually, those exceptional financial results have reflected a conjunction of elements favorable to the sector. World demand is still growing rapidly. The "hunting ground" keeps spreading, more particularly thanks to technological progress and the opening up of a large number of countries to international oil companies. As for refining, which has been the poor relation where oil company business is concerned for the past few years, it will eventually have slightly improved. Through the analysis of the major events of 1997, which couldn＇t ignore the Asian financial crisis or the Kyoto Conference, the purpose is first and foremost to enhance the elements that should condition the future of the whole hydrocarbon industry. Whereas the year 1998 seems to be opening up in less favorable auspices, the latter will have to draw lessons from this recent past in order to be up to the double challenge that it will have to face: the environment, a major stake at all levels, and technology, which makes it possible to push back even further the limits of what is technically and economically possible.