They gambled, figuring that they could take out our Pacific fleet and at the same time, grab the oil-rich Dutch east Indies and utilize the petroleum resources there. It didn't work out because they didn't have a sufficient tanker fleet and those they did have were constantly harried by American submarines and air power. This meant that they had to base their fleet near their oil resources and once those resources were isolated from the main islands, the war was quickly lost.
Here's an interesting article on Japan's oil situation. Note that toward the end, they were reduced to distilling pine roots for aviation fuel.
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Oil“oil-rich Dutch East Indies”
Compared to the United States, the Dutch East Indies were NOT oil-rich. The Dutch East Indies produced 7,262,000 metric tonnes of petroleum in 1937. That is only 5% of what the United States produced in the same year.