Word: bbl
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Rarely, if ever, has a Government program grown so large only to face extinction in so short a time. Created in 1980, the Synthetic Fuels Corporation had a monstrous initial budget of $15 billion. At the time, some experts expected the price of imported oil to reach $60 per bbl. by the end of the decade. The only solution seemed to be a drive to convert coal reserves, like those underlying the Great Plains site, to synthetic gas or oil. The SFC's first grandiose goal called for the U.S. to produce the equivalent of 2 million bbl. of crude...
...Last year was the strongest oil-demand increase in a generation and the strongest economic growth in a generation. China's oil demand grew 17% last year, or almost 1 million bbl. a day. There have been only a few times in the history of oil that demand has grown by 1 million bbl. a day in a single country; the last was in 1977 when the U.S. was coming out of recession. What we are seeing with China, and with India behind it, is analogous to the European economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s. A dozen years...
OPEC's troubles and the world oil glut are especially hitting Saudi Arabia, the organization's biggest and richest producer. Saudi output has dropped from a peak of 10.3 million bbl. per day in 1981 to 2 million bbl. per day in June, its lowest level in 20 years. Britain, a relative newcomer to the ranks of big-time producers with its North Sea fields, is pumping more oil than Saudi Arabia...
...Saudis would like to cut prices by as much as $2 per bbl. to increase sales to the point where they could pump at least 4 million bbl. per day. In a market with excess supply, that would mean other OPEC members would have to pump less and cut into their own oil revenues...
...profit squeeze. The average cost of a gallon of gas declined from $1.22 in May of 1984 to $1.15 by last January. In response, companies curbed production. At least 18 American refineries closed last year. The cutbacks have reduced U.S. inventories of gasoline by 9%, to 222 million bbl., since December. The tight supply and a seasonal pickup in driving this spring helped push prices back up. Another factor contributing to higher prices was the expense that oil companies faced to meet a July 1 Government-imposed deadline for reducing the amount of lead in gasoline by more than...