Word: bbl
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Once again, a stunning shift in the price of oil sent tremors around the globe. Yet unlike the jolts that staggered the world economy in the 1970s, last week's quake caused prices to crash rather than climb. On Tuesday oil dropped below $20 per bbl. for the first time in seven years. Said Charles Maxwell, an analyst with the Cyrus J. Lawrence brokerage house near Wall Street: "This is one of the most important days in the oil markets in a decade." Since November, the price of petroleum contracts has plunged about 40%, including an 18% drop last week...
Last week Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister, issued a stern warning. Without a new agreement to curb production, Yamani said, "there will be no limitation to the downward spiral that may bring crude prices to less than $15 per bbl., with adverse and dangerous consequences for the whole world economy." The threatening words pushed prices into a free fall. North Sea oil dropped to $17.70 per bbl. before recovering a bit to finish the week...
...anticipated 1986 earnings, and the country may not be able to stand much more. "Falling oil prices will have an impact on a Mexican budget that is already stretched to the limit," says Economist Rogelio Ramirez de la O. He estimates that a sustained price of $20 per bbl. for oil would cause the Mexican economy, which is still suffering the financial effects of last year's earthquake, to show no growth...
...producers in the American Southwest face gusher-size troubles of their own. In Texas, the center of the U.S. oil industry, government analysts estimate that each $1-per-bbl. drop in prices will cost the state 25,000 jobs and $100 million in revenues. The declines make it less rewarding for companies to drill and develop wells. Local banks could suffer greatly if the fall continues. Says Frank Anderson, director of financial research for Weber, Hall, Sale & Associates, a Dallas brokerage: "The real problem will come if the contract price gets to $15 per bbl. and stays there...
...state's already depressed oil production and could whack $50 million more out of a government budget that is now running a $197 million deficit. Oilmen fear that the declines could shut most of Oklahoma's 50,000 stripper wells, small units that individually produce no more than 10 bbl. per day but together account for the bulk of the state's petroleum output...