Word: benchmark
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Federal Reserve Board moved during the early summer to moderate the recovery because higher inflation remains a danger if the economy grows too fast. Concerned about rapid expansion of the money supply, the Reserve Board nudged interest rates up a notch. The benchmark prime rate that banks charge top corporate customers rose from 10.5% to 11%. Some members of the TIME board felt that the economy would have cooled off to a sustainable growth rate without the Fed's intervention. Said University of Minnesota Professor Walter Heller: "The Reserve Board tightened unnecessarily. It didn't make any sense...
...Europeans, declining oil prices are in one sense a mixed blessing: the controversial Soviet natural-gas pipeline is much less attractive than before. Among the terms the Europeans granted the Soviets was a guaranteed floor price on 80% of the gas delivered. It was pegged to correspond with the benchmark price then in effect for OPEC...
...Algeria's Energy Minister, Belkacem Nabi: "We all recognize that this is a very important meeting, unique in the history of OPEC." A global oil glut has driven the spot price for Saudi Light crude to about $28 per bbl. That is well under OPEC's official benchmark price of $34 per bbl. but not low enough to suit refiners, who in the U.S., for example, are able to sell what they can make from a barrel for only $26 to $27. As delegates from the 13 member nations harangued, haggled and tried to hammer out a scheme...
...only push prices still lower. With this in mind, Algeria and Venezuela proposed making 14 million bbl. the ceiling for OPEC producers and dropping the official price only slightly, to $32. But most members were hoping for a consensus closer to 17.5 million bbl. of production and a new benchmark price of $29. Saudi Oil Minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, realizing that the burden of a low production quota will fall on his country, rejected the proposal by Algeria and Venezuela with the comment: "Everyone would cheat...
...London last week. He proclaimed that his country would "never, never, never" agree to a reduction in the official OPEC price, a transparently hypocritical stance. For months Iran had been offering discount prices, sometimes as low as $26, in hopes of boosting production. The Iranians fear that if the benchmark price were slashed, they would have to offer even deeper discounts to maintain sales. In the face of a deadlock on the pricing issue, some ministers began talking openly of an unprecedented move: reaching a majority agreement that left out Iran. Such a step would break with OPEC...