Word: petroleum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first the industry vigorously defended its pricing policies. Charles DiBona, president of the American Petroleum Institute, accused the industry's critics of taking "a naive and one-sided view of how markets work." In fact, wholesale prices for more than two-thirds of all the oil imported into the U.S. are pegged to the spot prices set by commodity traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange, where the cost of oil floats up and down according to global supply and demand. Though spot-market prices for gasoline rose 20 cents per gal. in the first few frantic trading days after...
...increase in the cost of crude oil acts like a tax to siphon income from consumers and companies. Laurence Meyer, a Washington University economist who runs his own forecasting firm in St. Louis, had predicted a recession even before the oil shock. If prices charged by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reach $30 per bbl. in the fourth quarter, Meyer says, the GNP would decline a painful 3.6% during the period. If oil levels off at $32 per bbl. next year, he predicts that unemployment would climb to 7.4% by the end of 1991 and add some 2 million...
After the U.S. suffered through two oil shocks during the 1970s, politicians vowed never again to let the nation be vulnerable to petroleum blackmail. That brave promise has gone unfulfilled. America today is as dangerously dependent on imported oil as it was a decade...
...when the Middle East erupted in the October War, the world was hit with Oil Shock No. 1. Then in 1979-80, after revolution broke out in Iran and the country was invaded by Iraq, came Oil Shock No. 2. In both cases petroleum prices soared, energy shortages developed, inflation took off, and the world's economies sank into recession. Last week fears of Oil Shock No. 3 could be felt from New York City to Tokyo...
...geothermal camp has powerful arguments on its side. Hawaii currently depends on foreign oil to generate 87% of its electricity. Burning petroleum causes air pollution, and bringing it in by tanker makes oil spills an ever present danger. As an alternative energy source, geothermal generation is a proven technology. It supplies about 5% of California's electricity and provides power in two other states and about 20 foreign countries as well. Advocates admit that tapping the earth's heat in this fashion will also bring up noxious hydrogen sulfide and sulfur-dioxide gases, but they argue that the Kilauea volcano...