Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...oil companies are presently filling the gap by drawing upon their inventories, but that cannot continue for long. Even if all of Iran's striking oilworkers were to go back to their jobs this week, it could take as long as six months to bring the country's production back to an acceptable level. Oilmen actually say that if shortages of gasoline and other refined products are to be prevented from developing later this spring, the Iranian fields must start coming back on stream in the next six to eight weeks-a highly questionable prospect, given the country...
Occasional gasoline shortages this summer would merely foreshadow inevitable and worse dislocations next winter. Usually, the oil companies draw down their inventories steeply during the winter months anyway, then use the spring and summer to replenish their stocks. But U.S. inventories are already 10% below what they were this time last winter; they now stand at some 298 million bbl., or about a one-month supply. So if Iran's production is not resumed soon, says Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, "we would face much larger drawdowns next winter than we will have the resources to maintain...
...able to tap emergency supplies from the Government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but the three-year-old program is a shambles. Construction work is far behind schedule at the massive underground salt domes along the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast, where approximately a one-month supply of oil, or 248 million bbl., is supposed to be stored by year's end. So far only about 80 million bbl. of crude-little more than a week's supply-has been stockpiled. What is more, Energy Department technicians are still struggling with technical problems regarding the seemingly elementary task...
...publicly confident that a supply crunch can be avoided this year, but privately they are not so sure. Says one Schlesinger aide: "We're walking a fine line. We want the public to be aware that we are facing a potentially serious situation so that people will conserve oil, but we don't want to scare them...
...thing that DOE can do nothing about is the prospect of yet another increase in oil prices. Even a small scarcity in such a valuable commodity can produce large jumps in cost, and that is exactly what is now happening on the so-called spot market. There, oil companies bid for any available crude that is not already committed to customers under long-term contracts. Though the quoted long-term OPEC price currently stands at about $13 per bbl., spot-market oil last week was trading for as much as $17 per bbl. Warns Energy Economist John Lichtblau...