Word: cartelism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...falling, predictions of an imminent drop in international oil prices have proved premature-so far. Few experts now expect a major price cut soon. Yet all is far from well with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Because world demand for crude oil diminished sharply in recent months, the cartel is feeling the strain of a rapidly building global surplus, and some prices are beginning to crumble around the edges...
AMERICA'S LONG-LASTING marriage to the automobile, and the heavy dependence of the national economy on petroleum, has given birth to an international oil industry that has been able to exert an overpowering influence over its parents. The overgrown offspring is a quasi-autonomous international cartel that often gives it own interests priority over those of its mother country. Abuse of the economic and political power by the oil companies was not the sole cause of the recent quadrupling of world oil prices, but the industry has moved to suppress the entry market. The discouragement of synthetic fuel research...
...shale above ground, instead of underground, which is the cheaper and less environmentally--destructive method. Technologists in the Bureau of Mines have estimated that shale oil can be distilled underground for less than a dollar a barrel, but, in the words of one Justice Department lawyer, "The world oil cartel fears that the cheap production of oil from coal, or shale oil distilled underground, might bring about a reduction in price...
When estimating the surplus for 1980, the optimists tend to lump the cartel countries together. But the populous nations (Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria) may register payments deficits in several years, while the lightly populated countries of the Persian Gulf will be building ever bigger surpluses. The Morgan Guaranty report concedes that in 1980, Saudi Arabia's surplus will bulge at $100 billion, by far the world's highest...
...Cartel Break-Up. The super-optimistic scenario is that some OPEC nations that run into deficits will try to increase revenues by stepping up oil production. If demand does not increase at the same time, they will ask Saudi Arabia and the other surplus countries to cut back their own output to keep the cartel's production constant. And that could break up OPEC...