Word: cartels
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...even so, OPEC officials insist that there is nothing wanton or immoral about their policies. Cartel members point out that in Western Europe most governments still collect more in taxes on petroleum imports than OPEC does when it exports the crude. Eventually, everyone stands to lose. The world's poorest countries have borrowed so much to pay for oil that their accumulated indebtedness has risen to more than $210 billion. Such major U.S. lenders as Citicorp and Chase Manhattan have huge loans out to India, Pakistan, Turkey and many other countries. Fears are rising that sooner or later some borrowers...
Coming on top of OPEC's cutbacks, the cartel's price increases have a snowball effect. With supplies tight, retail prices in the U.S. begin edging up to the maximum. Then, when OPEC raises its crude oil charges, the U.S. Government allows the price controlled ceiling itself to creep higher. As the demand for gasoline mounts, the retail price
...keep the oil flowing, their public-image difficulties are compounded by one economic fact that no oilman can explain away: for better or for worse, the Seven Sisters, and many of their smaller competitors as well, have interests that are often parallel to those of the price-gouging OPEC cartel...
...something that the companies once managed with ease, but now no longer have much power to accomplish. Yet if they tried, they would be harming their own interests. The Sisters hold concessions in non-OPEC areas, like the British and Norwegian North Sea and Canada. Every time the cartel jabs up the price, up goes the value of the companies' holdings as well...
...cartel's share of the world market has dropped slightly, from 65% in 1973 to 58% now, as a result of increased output from Alaska, Mexico and the North Sea. But it would be foolhardy to expect that OPEC will any time soon lose its ability to control prices. Saudi Arabia alone has more than 25% of all proven world reserves; its daily output of 8.5 million bbl. is indispensable to Western Europe and Japan, and provides more than one-fifth of all U.S. crude imports...