Word: crude
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...industry's latest offense, in the popular wisdom, is apparent in its profits for 1990's fourth quarter, reported by the Energy Department last week. Thanks mostly to a brief rise in the price of crude to a high of $40, those earnings rose 77% above 1989's level. "We are protecting their oil with American boys," complains Senator Howard Metzenbaum, the Ohio Democrat who introduced a bill earlier this month calling for a surtax on the profits of the largest companies. "As quick as Saddam raised his sword, the oil companies raised their prices...
...estimated 1.1 billion liters (294 million gal.) of crude oil had escaped from Kuwait's Sea Island terminal before allied bombing raids on pumps feeding the facility reduced the torrent to a trickle. That makes the spill by far the largest ever, not 12 times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, as originally thought, but 27 times as large. And that does not include oil that began gushing last week from a second spill farther north. The magnitude of the mess is such that "it can't be cleaned up," says Jim Rhodes, of ABASCO, a maker...
...below the surface, can contain a slick. The next step is to put skimming equipment inside the booms and begin scooping up the oil, either with vacuuming devices or by drawing oil-absorbent plastic ropes through it and wringing them out. Some of the crude can be salvaged as kerosene...
Such techniques work best during the early days of a spill, before the crude begins to separate. Unfortunately, by the time a U.S. oil-spill assessment team arrived on the scene, the more volatile components of the oil had evaporated, leaving heavier chemicals that were whipped by waves into a thick water-oil "mousse" or turned into tar balls, which sink...
Already stunned by the success of allied air raids on war's first day, oil traders were jolted anew when they heard the bogus news that Saddam had been toppled by his officers. The rumor helped send the price of U.S. crude down more than $2 per bbl., capping a one-week fall...