Word: bbl
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...recession and put a drag on sluggish economies around the world. With every new rumor out of the Persian Gulf, the war premium swung menacingly. The gyrations gave rise to a frightening question: How high would oil prices skyrocket if fighting actually broke out -- $50 or even $100 per bbl...
...answer arrived with stunning force last week. At the start of hostilities, crude prices rose briefly. On news of the initial success of Operation Desert Storm, they collapsed in their sharpest drop in history. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, oil contracts for February delivery fell $10.56 per bbl. on Thursday after an avalanche of sell orders forced a one- hour halt in trading moments after the opening bell. The frantic trading slashed the oil price to near the $20-per-bbl. level that prevailed just before the gulf crisis began. "Euphoria is too weak a word," observes John Lichtblau...
...around most of Kuwait's 700 oil wells and 21 processing plants. If those devices are set off, the subsequent conflagration could create "a nuclear-winter-like situation," asserts Paul Crutzen, director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. Jordanian experts say the wells could burn 10 million bbl. of oil a day, releasing a vast cloud of black smoke into the stratosphere. Such a cloud has the potential to screen sunlight, reduce temperatures and damage crops throughout the northern hemisphere. Not all experts agree with the grim forecasts, contending that Kuwaiti oil fields are too far apart...
...that the U.S. faces a minefield of unprecedented risks that could worsen the recession and prolong it through next year and beyond. Chief among them is the threat of a drawn-out war in the Persian Gulf. That could push the price of oil, which closed at $25.92 per bbl. last week, well past the $41.40-per-bbl. peak that it hit in October. Another serious threat is the possibility of a crisis in the U.S. banking system, which is awash in bad loans and increasingly reluctant to lend more money. L. William Seidman, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance...
...fuel, water and electric needs of the U.S. forces operating there, but how should oil supplied to American troops be valued -- at the price it might fetch if sold on the world market or at Saudi production costs, which may be as low as 50 cents per bbl. of crude? By some estimates, Saudi crisis-related expenses in the first five months have totaled $22 billion, far more than the oil windfall. But these calculations include such items as forgiveness of $4.5 billion in Saudi loans to Egypt, a highly indirect crisis cost...