Word: arabia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, visited the Middle East last week, carrying with him a sheaf of proposals aimed at strengthening Washington's ties with moderate Arab states. His main port of call was Saudi Arabia, where he spent four days in talks with the influential Crown Prince Fahd, Defense Minister Prince Sultan and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal. By the time Weinberger left the country, after a negotiating session that lasted almost all night, the principal mystery was why it had taken him and the Saudis so long to agree to so little...
...airport press conference, Weinberger announced that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had agreed to establish a "joint committee for military projects," a sort of study group on defense matters. Exactly what it would study was not clear. But Prince Sultan, who attended the press conference, quickly observed that the relationship between the two countries was "not based on cooperation in the field of military endeavor." Replied Weinberger: "His Highness is, of course, correct...
Only one OPEC supplier, Saudi Arabia, which is currently exporting about 7.5 million to 8 million bbl. a day, could cut back production sharply enough to tighten the world market without doing grave damage to its own internal economy. Though Saudi Petroleum Minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani has been purposefully vague about his country's plans, reports out of the Persian Guff banking center of Bahrain last week suggested that the desert kingdom may be preparing to trim production at least somewhat this spring...
...influence that OPEC and Saudi Arabia have on the world oil market, however, is much less than it was just a few years ago. Those producers are now responsible for less than half of the Western world's oil supply. In 1973, when the first oil shock began, OPEC provided more than 70% of the crude used in the industrialized nations. In the past decade, such countries as Mexico and Britain, which are not OPEC members, although they generally follow its pricing closely, have become major oil producers. That has decreased the ability of OPEC to dictate the world...
...sense of security was shattered by the Iranian revolution which resulted in a loss of more than 6 million bbl. daily on world markets and pushed the price of oil from $12.50 to $34 per bbl. Veteran oil industry watchers are always nervous that a comparable upheaval in Saud Arabia would cause even more dramatic price increases, and have even more disastrous consequences for Western economies. Thus the curren oversupply of oil should be used by the West as an opportunity to decrease further its dependence upon OPEC rather than as an excuse to ignore an energy crisis that will...