Word: bbl
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Some of these worries might come true even without a war. The price of crude oil for October delivery leaped to $32.35 per bbl. at one point last Thursday, the highest since futures trading began in 1983, and closed Friday at $30.91, drastically above the $18 spot price that prevailed only a month ago. The worldwide embargo of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil has removed about 4 million bbl. a day from international trade, and doubts are growing that other producers can make up the shortfall. Some experts are skeptical that Saudi Arabia can increase its production of crude quite...
...gloom, beyond the tendency for such fears to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Big oil-price increases act like a stiff tax increase, pulling money out of consumers' pockets and reducing their ability to buy other products. A rule of thumb is that an annual increase of $8 per bbl. in oil prices reduces economic growth 1 percentage point a year. But petroleum has already risen more than that, and subtracting a point from growth leaves almost nothing. So if prices stay put, says a Bush Administration official, "growth is going to be a giant goose egg for the year...
...only gasoline and heating fuel but also everything else made from petrochemicals: detergents, paint, ink, plastics and anything packaged in them, to name only a few. Anthony Vignola, chief economist of the Kidder Peabody brokerage firm, figures that if the recent rise of crude oil to almost $32 per bbl. is not rolled back, consumer prices this quarter will jump at an annual rate of 8.6%, nearly double their recent pace...
...such as offshore oil and coal. Second and more important, any effort to wean the U.S. from foreign energy sources would require forcing consumers to pay a higher price for gasoline and other fuels. In the early 1980s, when the price of crude rose to more than $40 per bbl., imports fell by half. But as prices slumped to as low as $10 per bbl., consumption and imports leaped to new highs. Says Richard Rippe, chief economist of Dean Witter: "We were far too complacent about letting the current price tell us where energy policy should...
...shocks of 1973 and 1979 less likely. Price controls that distorted energy markets have been lifted, and most of the restrictions that made it difficult for industries to shift to whatever fuel is cheapest have been removed. Most vital is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 590 million bbl. of crude that the government has been stashing away in salt domes in Louisiana and Texas since 1977. Though the reserve is designed to combat shortages that might arise during a crisis, some members of Congress and many energy economists are pushing the Administration to announce that it would be willing to release...