Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Escalating spot market prices are, if anything, a bigger threat to the world economy than is the ever present danger of a cut in supplies. With spot prices now hovering at $40 or more per bbl., nearly twice the maximum official OPEC price of $23.50 for oil sold under contracts of three months or more, OPEC members are clamoring for a hefty new increase when the cartel meets in Caracas on Dec. 17. Notes a top Carter Administration official: "Spot prices are the locomotive now dragging OPEC prices along." Adds Data Resources' Eckstein: "Our present forecast has OPEC prices...
...that there is a "substantial risk" of a drop in OPEC output of as much as 3 million bbl., an amount just about equal to total current Iranian production. The drop would be caused by expected cutbacks early next year by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria and Libya. Thus oil prices stand to rise considerably even if Iran does not reduce its current production...
...prices go as far as $35 per bbl., the impact on oil inflation and the world economy would be severe. U.S. consumer prices would continue rising at a dizzying double-digit pace, forcing the Federal Reserve to stick by its anti-inflation policy of sky-high interest rates much longer than expected. The almost inevitable result: a deeper recession than so far forecast. Despite slumping growth, the nation's oil import bill, which is projected to total $61 billion this year, would leap to $96 billion in 1980. That in turn would keep the dollar's value dropping...
...more realistic worry is that conservative oil producers will see the seizure of Iran's funds as proof of the riskiness of putting assets in any money, in any bank. That would add yet more weight to the growing OPEC feeling that it is smarter to cut production and leave the oil in the ground where it is safe than to turn it into dollars or other paper assets that can be seized. Confidence in the international monetary system was shaky enough before last week's action. Since 1973, the nearly tenfold increase in oil prices has sent...
This process, known as petrodollar recycling, has pushed up the debts of the less developed nations to $300 billion. Many nations are so weighed down with debt that bankers are growing wary of lending them more. Yet if they cannot borrow, poor countries will have trouble importing more oil. Without energy, their economies will slump, exports will shrivel, and they may default on existing loans. At the extreme, that would threaten some of the lending banks with failure, and the U.S. Federal Reserve would have to push the money printing presses into overdrive to bail them out by advancing huge...