Word: arabia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...miles wide at its narrowest point, at the southern end of the gulf, might be closed because of the hostilities. Halting the flow of the supertankers that steam through the passage would have a devastating ripple effect (see following story) by preventing the shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the smaller gulf states. That kind of drop in world supplies would be intolerable...
Only a few buyers will actually miss Iran's supplies. Under the Shah, the country was the second largest OPEC producer after Saudi Arabia; but lack of maintenance, spare parts and skilled workers since the revolution cut production from a 1974 peak of 6 million bbl. a day to 1.5 million. Of this, only 700,000 bbl. were being exported. Still, customers like Rumania, India and Spain, which have continued to receive shipments on the order of 150,000 bbl. a day, will now have to turn to different sources for their crude...
...loss of Iraq's supplies is more serious. Exports averaged more than 3.2 million bbl. a day, representing 11% of OPEC's total, the biggest production after Saudi Arabia's. The major victims of the cutoff now will be Brazil, which has depended on Iraq for 45% of its oil needs, Japan (30%) and France (23%). With the noncombatant OPEC nations probably making up the shortfall, there may be some scrambling for supplies, but it still should not be too difficult for consumers to buy all they need...
...those surroundings of tight security and contention, the oil cartel last week was seeking to reach agreement on a long-range pricing and production strategy. Several key OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, want to replace the current erratic increases in the cost of crude oil with a system of regular quarterly price hikes that would be tied to the level of inflation in industrialized nations. The Saudis are also anxious to return to a unified OPEC oil price. Since last July, rates have ranged from $28 to $37 per bbl. Prior to the meeting, the Saudis hinted that they would...
...began pushing up the tax brackets of Americans working outside the U.S. It also tightened the rules on exemptions for the benefits many receive while employed overseas. The equivalent of an apartment renting for $700 a month in Chicago, for example, might run $2,000 or more in Saudi Arabia. Private English-language schools there can cost as much as $5,000 a year for each child. The tax changes that finally went into effect in 1978 made it almost prohibitively expensive for independent American business men to work abroad and hiked the tab for companies that pick up their...