Word: messaoud
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...reflect world inflation and price increases on manufactured goods the oil producers buy. The world recession has reduced demand for oil enough to create a sizable glut, but OPEC members are cutting production rather than making any substantial reduction in prices. "We are masters of the oil price," declared Messaoud Aït-Chaalal, chief Algerian delegate to the Paris conference...
...climate was all but unbearable. At Hassi Messaoud the first oil drilling teams labored in 120° to 130° temperatures and through sandstorms, often came off an eight-hour shift near collapse. At Edjelé, welders putting together oil storage tanks learned that simply to touch the metal of the tanks meant a bad burn. The combination of Saharan sand and heat wears out mechanical equipment with startling rapidity; at Edjelé the average life of a Dodge truck engine is 7,500 miles...
Biggest difficulty of all lies in supplies, of which Hassi Messaoud alone consumes 2,400 tons a week. Almost everything but water (which is mercifully plentiful underground) has to be flown or trucked into the camps from Algiers. A truck driver on the Algiers-Edjelé run, accustomed to six or seven blowouts per trip, and to having his truck frequently immobilized by sandstorms for days on end, says: "Every time I reach Edjelé, I collapse more or less where I stand, and swear I will never make the run again...
...lure and keep the kind of men they need, the companies rely not on high salaries-top wages for an engineer are $700 a month-but on the pioneer spirit, a generous leave policy (up to one week in four in Algiers) and high living standards. Says a Hassi Messaoud executive: "Provided the mail is regular and the food is good, you can get Frenchmen to accomplish the impossible...
...Sahara in a new way the modern activities of a big part of our industry." With more immediacy, he talks of building a power plant (to run on local deposits of natural gas) at the oasis of In Salah and of building a full-fledged town at Hassi Messaoud...