Word: oiling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite concern in Congress over the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, Americans appear to be strongly in favor of that policy. In a poll taken for TIME last week by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman,* supporters of the use of U.S. military escorts for reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers outnumbered opponents by almost 2 to 1. Some of those sentiments, however, are based on erroneous information: 85% said the escorts were important to "protect oil shipments going to the U.S." In fact, most of the petroleum products carried in the U.S.-escorted vessels are bound for Western Europe and Japan...
...other side of the war, Iran is seeking ways of bypassing its / embattled terminal at Kharg Island. Despite the project's estimated cost of $2 billion, Tehran says it is building a 1.5 million-bbl. line from its oil fields in southern Iran to the port of Jask, outside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also announced last week a tentative agreement with the Soviet Union to ship oil to the Black Sea through a converted gas pipeline that has not been in use since...
Most experts regard the lines as too costly to fully replace tankers, which are the cheapest way to move gulf oil despite the high insurance rates that must be paid by the ships' owners. Moreover, the pipes can suddenly be shut down by war, especially if the routes cross national borders. Saudi Arabia's route through Lebanon has been closed since 1983, and Baghdad's pipe to the Syrian coast was shut down soon after the Iran-Iraq conflict began in 1980. In addition, pipelines remain vulnerable to sabotage and attack by planes or missiles...
Without pipelines, Iraq might have been knocked out of the war by now. Soon after the fighting broke out, the country's ports were closed and its credit dwindled. Baghdad adopted a strategy of expanding its lines while at the same time attacking tankers carrying Iranian oil. By increasing its exports through Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Iraq earned enough foreign exchange to buy much needed arms...
Though Saudi Arabia's Petroline cost as much as $5 billion, the network equips the kingdom with the best hedge that money can buy against a possible closing of the gulf. With pipeline access to the Red Sea for shipping its oil, Saudi Arabia can avoid an export shutdown caused by the tanker war and is better equipped to withstand any pressure to fall in line with policies pushed by Iran...