Word: oilmen
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Austin interviewed oilmen, contractors and job-hunting boomers from the Lower 48 for the story which was written by Associate Editor James Atwater, with the help of Reporter-Researcher Marta Dorion. Correspondent Christopher Ogden and Photographer Steve Northup toured the state to measure the impact of petroleum-based prosperity on Alaska's life-style and pristine environment. Both of those, they found, were not what they had been in gold-rush days. In Point Barrow, for instance, some of the Eskimos whom Ogden had come to interview turned up with Texas oil lawyers and New York accountants in respectful...
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...
Meanwhile, the government of another country has recognized that it cannot extract all that it would like from the oilmen. Norway had hoped to tax away 90% of the companies' North Sea profits. Last week, however, Oslo's Labor Party government reduced its preliminary tax proposal to 70% to 75% -still too high in the view of the oilmen, but at least a step in their direction...
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...