Word: bbl
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Poor, poor OPEC, Buchwald went on, needling the oil producers, who have ballooned their prices from $3 to as high as $41 per bbl. in eight years, swelled their treasuries unimaginably, twice plunged the industrialized world into recession and contributed to an inflationary spiral that is unmatched in peacetime history. Now that those producers have impaled themselves on a horn of plenty, Buchwald urged Americans to have a heart and to "do unto them what they have done unto...
OPEC itself is in disarray. Iran and Iraq, for example, have been waging a war of attrition for 18 months, and Iran two weeks ago reduced its oil price by $2 per bbl. to increase sales, raise money and pay for the fighting. Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi last week let off a tirade against the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which he accused of producing too much oil and driving down prices. He said that the oil producers now face an "economic blockade" ordered by America and executed by Saudi Arabia. Production by the 13 members of OPEC...
...reasons: 1) after repeated State Department warnings, the number of Americans in Lib ya, mainly with oil companies, has been cut to fewer than 400, and those apparently refuse to leave; 2) the current oil glut makes it easier for the U.S. to replace the 120,000 bbl. per day (2% of U.S. oil imports) it has been buying from Libya and might make it more difficult for Libya to sell that amount ( 1 3 % of its oil exports) elsewhere...
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...
That false 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...