Word: petroleum
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...their spin later in the week, when more cautious members of OPEC played down the threats. But oil-industry experts predicted that an even more dramatic decline could be on the way. By next spring the seasonal drop in demand for heating oil is likely to aggravate the global petroleum surplus. "This collapse occurred in anticipation of trouble," said Constantine Fliakos, who follows the oil industry for Merrill Lynch. "You can imagine what will happen when the real flooding of an already glutted market begins." A price war would be a risky, last-ditch change in strategy for OPEC, which...
...price war? We don't want a fight. It would be very hectic," said Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia's oil minister. But chaos is exactly what the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries produced last week when several members of the group threatened to launch an all-out campaign of slashing prices to boost OPEC's declining share of the world oil market. The pronouncement sent petroleum traders into a temporary selling frenzy. On the futures market in New York City, the January-delivery price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, took a record two-day plunge...
Even so, any threat of oil prices plummeting to $20 or even $15 renews concerns about the financial stability of strapped petroleum producers like Mexico, which desperately needs oil income to pay its $96 billion debt. Rapidly falling prices would deal another blow to the U.S. energy belt. Banks and drilling companies there have seen the value of their energy investments tumble with previous drops in the price of oil and natural gas. Says Alan Edgar, a petroleum analyst for the Dallas investment firm Schneider, Bernet & Hickman: "The bankers have got to be nervous. Next year will be the worst...
...increasingly difficult. One hindrance has been the rise of protectionist sentiment in the industrial world. Another is the falling price of many Third World exports, ranging from coffee to copper and tin. Mexico, which depends on oil for most of its export income, has suffered a 13.5% drop in petroleum sales this year...
Pickens, chief of Mesa Petroleum Inc., is known for his frequent attempts to seize a controlling interest in a company and then to sell-out at a profit once his threat becomes apparent. Such tactics are known as "greenmail...