Word: oils
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...types of telemarketing cons are being hatched overnight, sometimes abetted by front-page news that provides a convincing sales pitch. After the 1987 stock-market crash shook investor confidence in securities, con artists began pushing such alternatives as rare coins, gold, oil and gas leases, and diamonds. One Tulsa-based telemarketing company cleaned up by selling shares in a "secret process" for converting volcanic sand on Costa Rican beaches into gold. A swindler who had been convicted of selling shares in a nonexistent gold mine continued to solicit new investors from a pay phone in his Wyoming prison...
...really living with a false sense of security," warns George Mitchell, an independent Houston oilman. "We're heading for deep trouble." What provokes Mitchell's dire prediction is the shriveled condition of the U.S. oil-drilling industry, which he believes has made the country seriously vulnerable to a future energy emergency. "We're losing ground faster than we might have predicted even a few months ago," he says. Adds John Watson, another Houston oilman: "All the people have left, rigs have been dismantled, the financial industry has turned its back on oil and gas. It would take...
...everyone is quite so gloomy, but the current brisk run-up in oil prices serves as a reminder that the U.S. energy supply is increasingly under the influence of outside forces. During March commodities traders bid the price of oil above the $20-a-bbl. threshold for the first time in 17 months. Last week the futures price of West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark U.S. crude, reached $20.15 a bbl., up some 50% since last October. The rally largely reflects an unexpectedly successful campaign by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with several non-OPEC countries...
While the price of petroleum is still a long way from its $35-a-bbl. peak in 1981, the U.S. is sliding back to a level of dependence on foreign sources not seen since the oil-shock days of the 1970s. January petroleum imports averaged 8.1 million bbl. a day, up almost 21% from a year ago and surpassing domestic production (8 million bbl.) for the first time in more than a decade. The import surge has hampered efforts to shrink the U.S. trade deficit, and rising prices have aggravated inflationary pressure...
...long stretch of low oil prices during the 1980s has discouraged U.S. exploration and consumption. Only 740 drilling rigs were operating in the U.S. / last week, down from 943 a year ago and a far cry from the 4,500 functioning rigs in late 1981. Exxon's spending on domestic drilling dropped nearly two- thirds from 1985 to 1987, to $333 million. Oil experts estimate that prices will have to stabilize at no less than $25 a bbl. to encourage a drilling resurgence in the U.S. Many American oil companies have boosted their exploration overseas, where finding oil typically costs...