Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...cartel's profit motive was much in evidence at an Arab energy conference in Abu Dhabi last week. Delegates bitterly attacked Western oil companies for trading oil back and forth among themselves at extortionate prices on the small but highly volatile spot market. Mani Said Utaiba, Oil Minister of the United Arab Emirates and president of the cartel, suggested that at its next meeting on March 26 in Geneva, OPEC should take up the idea of blacklisting offending companies and refusing to sell oil to them...
...oil squeeze will tighten no matter what Iran does. Prices are climbing not least because one OPEC country after another has either posted large unilateral increases or announced rises for later this spring. Last week Algeria and Iraq joined the list; Algeria's planned rise of 28% i by far the biggest...
Another frighteningly familiar threat has suddenly loomed again: the prospect of production cutbacks by other OPEC members. Libya last week announced that beginning April 1 it will reduce sched uled deliveries to oil companies by 12 to 18% for unspecified reasons. Similarly Algeria told oil company customers to reduce purchases by 10% to 15%. OPEC officials tried to link continued oil supplies to a pro-Palestinian solution to the Arab Israeli conflict, but the real reason for the cuts is to keep supplies tight and prices high even though Iran is resuming limited production...
Such tactics have caused oil executives to mutter about drawing up a blacklist of their own, perhaps to refuse to deal in the spot market with OPEC countries that will not honor their legally binding contracts. Said Clifton Garvin Jr., chairman of Exxon: "It is our belief that we should not buy oil at present high spot market prices." Others do not seem so confident. Last week Royal Dutch/Shell, a major customer of Iranian crude before the ouster of the Shah, was back in the loading queue for a new supertanker cargo at an undisclosed price...
...fact, oil companies and OPEC are both benefiting from the rapid run-up in prices. Oil industry profits for this quarter are expected to rise anywhere from 20% to 40% above last year's. Among the reasons: inventories acquired at last year's prices are becoming more valuable as OPEC pushes up the worldwide cost of crude. The largest gains will come from operations in Western Europe, where retail prices are largely uncontrolled...