Word: oilmen
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Buried Treasure. But the oil exploiters are pressing ahead anyway, perhaps with less euphoria than in earlier years but with more experience, maturity and confidence. Though only a trickle of oil is being pumped now, oilmen expect crude to flow in ever increasing quantities from an undersea supply estimated at 40 billion bbl., two to four times the recoverable reserves from Alaska's North Slope. Some experts say the total could be 70 billion bbl.-roughly equal to the so-far proven reserves of Kuwait-or even 150 billion...
Expensive Barges. Even before oil begins flowing heavily, the North Sea's prospects are spurring radical changes in oil technology. When exploration began, the most important model of an underwater operation that oilmen could go by was the Gulf of Mexico, which has been dotted by U.S. drilling and production platforms for a generation. The North Sea soon turned into a stern teacher. Laying pipelines, for example, called for bigger, more sophisticated and more expensive barges than any ever used in the Gulf. Because choppy seas often prevent tanker loading, some method for temporarily storing great quantities...
Britain has also proposed buying a 51% government interest, or "participation," in private companies' ventures in the North Sea. Supposedly, this would eventually steer half the oil revenues and profits to the nation's treasury. But oilmen, and even a few government officials, see little point to participation. Britain can get its proper share of the spoils through tax and conservation laws already on the books, or headed for passage, without buying control...
Newer Frontier. There is little doubt among oilmen now that the North Sea will pay off for its biggest gamblers, although just how much remains to be seen. For whatever oil it has left over for export, Britain should find a ready market in Western Europe; about one-fifth of Europe's energy may eventually come from the North Sea. Norway is already feeling pressure to speed up development from industrialists eager to spur the economy, and it probably will do so in the chillier, deeper and more treacherous waters above the 62nd parallel where even richer oil deposits...
...race day a crowd of more than 15,000 pours into the small Ruidoso Downs track. In the exclusive Jockey Club, ranchers and oilmen accompanied by bejeweled blondes in cowboy boots unload fistfuls of $100 bills at the tote windows. Their bets, combined with those of the grandstand, bring the handle...