Word: aramco
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Aramco is under attack because of a highly complex tax break. The company pays Saudi Arabia the fixed price for the oil that it extracts and then collects a production fee of 25? per bbl. But 85% of its payments are considered Saudi income taxes, which Aramco's four parents ultimately can use to reduce their U.S. income taxes. Every time Saudi Arabia increases its oil prices, Aramco's local tax payments rise, and so do its benefits under the U.S.'s so-called foreign tax credit. President Carter has vowed to tighten up on the credits...
...Aramco's many critics also complain that the company is altogether too cozy with the Saudi government. Why, they ask, have the Saudis failed to complete their plan to buy out 100% of the company's production facilities? The government announced the nationalization plan five years ago. So far, it has acquired only 60% of Aramco's $2 billion in refineries, pipelines and ports. Has Aramco persuaded the Saudis to go slow, since a full buyout would burden the four corporate shareholders with enormous U.S. capital gains taxes? Nonsense, say Saudi officials. They insist that the final...
...their middleman role, Aramco's American chiefs plainly have divided loyalties. From Chairman John J. Kelberer, a career-long Aramco engineering manager, on down, executives remain determined to do nothing that would anger their Saudi hosts or jeopardize the company's concession. During the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, Aramco's executives not only did as they were told by the Saudi government, but cut back production by more than requested just to show that they were good Saudi corporate citizens...
...extremely wary of divulging details of their business, and slips can prove costly. Example: much of Saudi Arabia's ability to restrain OPEC from driving up prices has depended on whether the Saudis can convincingly threaten to boost production enough to create periodic petroleum gluts. Yet high Aramco officers are among the few people who know the real size of Saudi Arabia's production capacity. Last spring Exxon and Socal divulged to the Justice Department, in its ongoing anti-trust investigation of the oil industry, that Aramco had little spare capacity. That statement helped to undercut Saudi influence...
...controversy surrounding Aramco underscores the internal tensions within the U.S. over the nation's alarming dependence on foreign crude. The oil industry must have billions of dollars to expand U.S. drilling, exploration and other energy-producing investments that are needed to escape OPEC's hold, and Aramco's megaprofits are a big help. But to ensure those profits and continued access to foreign crude, the company has to walk a finer and finer line between the steadily diverging interests of producing and consuming states...