Word: oilmen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Left-wing Labor backbenchers have called for a tax of 90%. Caught between threats from the oil companies to move their drilling rigs elsewhere and the demands of the left-wing backbenchers to stand firm, the Wilson government has been searching for a solution. Within the past few weeks oilmen have been mildly encouraged by signs of government backpedaling. The Cabinet is expected to announce soon a tax rate between 50% and 60%, with special incentives for developers of the smaller fields. But oilmen still grumble that this would leave too little profit if oil prices drop...
...companies argue that they need a better shake in order to pay for their huge development expenses. Exploration and drilling costs are running five times what they are in the placid blue of the Persian Gulf. One reason: the treasure is deep. Oilmen must drop their rigging 400 to 600 ft. beneath turbulent waves then drill another 8,000 to 12,000 ft. beneath the sea floor (see diagram). And North Sea weather is worse than bleak. Last month a crew member on a British Petroleum rig was swept into the sea in an icy storm; his death...
...oilmen find much to fret about these days: congressional pressure to end the depletion allowance and lucrative foreign-tax write-offs, calls for a rollback of domestic oil prices and growing resistance to offshore drilling. Still, nothing bothers them more than the possibility that Government might not only increase its intervention in the oil industry but actually decide to get into the business itself...
Opposing federal intervention, oilmen argue that government oil firms in European countries, like France's Compagnie Franchise Des Petroles, have not been spectacularly successful at developing new production. A U.S. federal energy corporation, they say, could not add much to private industry's expertise in exploration and production. At the same time, oilmen raise the specter of socialism. "What comes next?" asks Frank Ikard, head of the American Petroleum Institute. "How about a Federal Livestock Corporation? Or a Federal Iron and Steel Corporation...
...President Franklin Roosevelt, had plotted the assassination of Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling of the Bahamas. Last year he recklessly called executives of the major oil companies before the subcommittee and harshly accused them of jacking up prices and making extortionate profits from the energy crisis. The oilmen argued that the high earnings were for only one year, came after several years of modest profits, and were largely from big sales overseas. At one point, Exxon Vice President Roy A. Baze could not recall the size of his company's 1972 dividends. Jackson angrily threatened "to start slapping subpoenas...