Word: bbl
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...that the petroleum producers were about to raise oil prices again. But last week at an emergency meeting in Geneva, OPEC struggled to avoid slashing prices once more. Rather than reduce the cost of crude, the ministers adopted a plan to reduce temporarily their production ceiling from 17.5 million bbl. per day to 16 million bbl...
...ministers hope to avoid repeating their desperate move of March 1983, when they were forced to make the first and only price cut in OPEC'S history, a markdown of its benchmark Arab Light crude by $5 per bbl., to $29. Since then, energy conservation and sluggish world economic growth have helped push oil prices even lower, despite OPEC's self-imposed production limit of 17.5 million bbl. a day. Ministers hinted last week that they might reduce their output to about 16 million bbl. a day. By comparison, the group's daily production...
...deeply indebted oil-producing countries, including Venezuela, Indonesia and Ecuador, a decline in prices would be painful. In Mexico, which depends on petroleum sales for 70% of its exports, a $2-per-bbl. price cut would produce a $ 1.1 billion drop in an annual oil income of $15 billion. Thus Mexican officials accompanied Yamani on his travels last week even though their country is not an OPEC member. Yamani announced that both Mexico and Egypt said they would cut their own output in support of OPEC's plan...
...economic slump. Total oil consumption is expected to increase about 3% this year over 1983, thanks partly to strong growth in the U.S. and Japan. But that pace is too slow to satisfy OPEC members, which are currently producing slightly less than their self-imposed quota of 17.5 million bbl. per day, only half their capacity. As a result, OPEC countries such as Libya and Iran have been quietly undercutting official prices to keep sales steady. "They're showing an inability to handle a moderately growing pie," says Arnold Safer, president of the Energy Futures Group consulting firm. "When...
Nonetheless, other authorities maintain that the OPEC benchmark will have to come down at least $1.50, particularly since Nigeria is selling on the cheap. The true market price of oil, if all producers exported at will, would be about $20 per bbl., and OPEC must at least partially close the gap between that price and the official $29 level. Said Safer: "My guess is, the OPEC countries will come to their senses." In a speech to a gathering of energy experts in London, Energy Secretary Donald Hodel predicted last week that world prices could fall to $25 per bbl...