Starting with the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo against the West, a period of prolonged high oil prices set in that characterised the rest of the 1970s. Romania as a major oil producer greatly benefited from the high oil prices of the 1970s, which led Ceaușescu to embark on an ambitious plan to invest heavily in oil-refining plants. Ceaușescu's plan was to make Romania into Europe's number one oil refiner not only of its oil, but also of oil from Middle Eastern states like Iraq and Iran, and then to sell all of the refined oil at a profit on the Rotterdam spot market. As Romania lacked the money to build the necessary oil refining plants and Ceaușescu chose to spend the windfall from the high oil prices on aid to the Third World in an attempt to buy Romania international influence, Ceaușescu borrowed heavily from Western banks on the assumption that when the loans came due, the profits from the sales of the refined oil would be more than enough to pay off the loans. A major problem with Ceaușescu's oil-refining plan which led to Romania taking enormous loans was the low productivity of Romanian workers, which meant that the oil-refining plants were finished years behind schedule. The 1977 earthquake which destroyed much of Bucharest also led to delays in the oil plan. By the time the oil refining plants were finished in the early 1980s, a slump in oil prices had set in, leading to major financial problems for Romania.