Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Since the early talk about the crunch of the 1980s, the headlines have been full of seemingly good news about oil. Exploratory drilling activity has risen by 30% since the 1973 embargo. In the past year or so, oil has begun to flow from Alaska's North Slope, North Sea production has increased, and promising indications of oil and natural gas have been found in the Baltimore Canyon off the U.S.'s East Coast. Oil companies have also been exploring what are thought to be big deposits along China's coast. And in Venezuela, development is continuing...
...proven reserves* from 14 billion bbl. to 20 billion bbl., which would put it in a league with Venezuela, and officials are happily suggesting that the total may be as high as 200 billion bbl. If so, that would put Mexico in a class with the present leading oil country, Saudi Arabia, which has proven reserves in the area of 180 billion...
Another sanguine sign: partly because conservation efforts (especially by industry) have had more effect than almost anyone originally expected, the annual growth in world oil consumption has been held to about 1% in the five years since the embargo, compared with the 5% to 7% increases in the extravagant days before. As a result, the OPEC countries have been holding their production well below full capacity; even so, they are preparing to end their two-year price freeze with an increase (perhaps 5%) next year...
Understandably, people are confused about the oil situation. While the President continues to try to get his stalled energy program through Congress, and the cost of imported oil-which now supplies 42% of U.S. needs, vs. 35% in 1973-continues to increase the nation's balance of payments deficit, critics like Ralph Nader scoff that "the world is drowning in oil." Indeed, the experts themselves are increasingly divided into two camps...
Among the energy optimists, the rosiest view is offered by Dutch Economist Peter Odell, who has concluded that world oil reserves, including deposits in deep sea areas and the polar regions, stand at 4,500 billion bbl., or seven times current proven reserves. That is also well above the Rand Corp.'s estimate, which puts the reserves within a range of 1,700 billion bbl. to 2,300 billion bbl. Odell argues that the size of some known fields has been greatly underrated, notably the North Sea and Orinoco Oil Belt, whose resources he believes are even "greater than...