This is an interesting dataset sent from a friend, who found a World Bank resource with oil prices for Brent and Dubai crude going back to 1960 — not the West Texas (US) price, which was controlled by the Railroad Commission of Texas in the 1950s and 1960s.
The influence of the Railroad Commission led to a fixed price around $3/barrel in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the Brent/Dubai price was considerably lower than this, more like $1.50/barrel.
After the 1973-74 Oil Shock, OPEC took a role somewhat like the Railroad Commission, and there is a kind of fixed world price, including Brent and Dubai. This disintegrated in the 1980s, and we went to a free market.
With this in mind, the rise in world oil from 1970 to the 1980s was about 10x, about $1.60 to $16, similar to the rise in gold, $35 to $350.
Here is a nice chart of the price of oil from 1890-1941:
We could say that it is about $1.00 before WWI; about 20 barrels per oz. of gold; or, about 1500 mg/barrel, with highs around $1.75/barrel or 2600mg. This would translate to about $5000/20 or $250 today.
