Word: petroleum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Abundant supplies of crude oil worldwide are no bargain either. Americans are paying inflated prices for gasoline and other petroleum products. The bloated bills will more than wipe out the savings from this year's multibillion-dollar tax cut. For all this, you can thank more than three decades of bungled energy policies by a succession of Congresses and Presidents. Get ready for more bungling...
...exaggerated oil prices. While the world is swimming in crude oil, it already trades at an inflated price of $30 a bbl., a level essentially dictated by Saudi Arabia with the approval of the U.S. government. This translates into swollen prices for gasoline, home heating oil and other petroleum products. What's worse is that because of Congress's three decades of fumbled energy legislation, Americans have become more vulnerable than ever to an interruption in foreign supply that would truly send prices into orbit and cripple the U.S. economy. More than 53% of America's daily consumption...
...PRODUCTION AND IMPORTS: PROMISES, PROMISES. In 1973, with the country importing 6 million bbl. of crude oil and petroleum products daily, President Nixon pledged that by virtue of his Project Independence "in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving." He advanced a catalog of energy proposals that covered everything from drilling on the outer continental shelf to building more nuclear power plants, from expanding the use of coal to conducting research on potential...
...make matters worse, the U.S. is confronted with a refinery gap--just as it was in the 1973-74 oil crisis. The U.S. consumed 19.8 million bbl. a day of petroleum products last year, but its refineries could process only 16.6 million bbl. of crude oil. The 3.2 million barrel difference was made up through imports of finished products like gasoline and jet fuel, which are even more susceptible to supply disruptions than crude oil. Following the energy debacles of the 1970s, the industry began adding refinery capacity. By 1980, it could process all the crude oil required to meet...
During the 1980s, as it became clear gasoline conservation was working, aided by a nasty recession, one energy forecast after another anticipated ever better mileage. The American Petroleum Institute, swept up by auto-industry fervor, announced in September 1981 that "forecasts of fuel efficiency for new cars now exceed those mandates (27.5 m.p.g.), suggesting an industry-fleet average of 30 m.p.g. by 1985." Not exactly: this year the average is still 27.5 m.p.g. for vehicles officially labeled as passenger cars, but for the entire fleet of vehicles, including SUVs and trucks, it is much worse. The best overall fuel economy...