Word: petroleum
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...nomadic backwater into an influential power with all the trappings of a modern nation. Most of Saudi Arabia's wealth, in fact, has been accumulated only in the past decade: with nearly a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves, the kingdom profited handsomely when petroleum prices quadrupled in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. In 1981, for example, the country collected an estimated $110 billion in oil revenues, up from $2.7 billion in 1971. Government outlays rose accordingly: spending is now running about $80 billion a year...
Prospects for the agreement first glimmered at a Houston barbecue four years ago. Deng Xiaoping, Communist Party Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China, who was making a brief U.S. tour, was introduced to Armand Hammer, 85, chairman of Occidental Petroleum. Brushing aside the interpreter, Deng said, "No introduction is necessary. We know Dr. Hammer as the American who helped Lenin. Why don't you come .to China and help us as well?" Hammer, whose close trade ties with the Soviet Union stretch back for more than half a century, said that he would be happy...
...bidding for tracts in the 58,000-sq.-mi. area in the Yellow and South China seas has consumed 18 months and attracted 33 companies, including 16 from the U.S. In May a group headed by British Petroleum won the first contract. The Occidental-led group is expected to spend $120 million on exploration. If it is successful in discovering commercial quantities of crude, the production contract will run for 15 years; China will get up to 51% of the proceeds...
Even with that success, the government continues to press ahead with a policy to promote alternatives to imported oil, and it has not cut back on those programs despite currently lower world petroleum prices. Nuclear plants now provide about 12% of Japan's electric power. The country at present has 23 nuclear plants in operation, and it has 19 more planned or under construction. Liquefied natural gas produces about 18% of total energy needs, hydroelectricity 19.8% and coal 2.6%. Oil-burning thermal plants provide only 46.6% of electricity at present, vs. almost 100% a decade ago. The Japanese...
...does much toward eliminating the country's rampant poverty and underemployment. No sooner had Mexico begun to reap riches from vast new oil finds in the 1970s, for example, than the world's industrial economies became mired in recession, and unneeded oil was squirting out everywhere. Petroleum prices plummeted, deflating the hopes and dreams Mexico had fashioned for itself when it became the world's fourth largest oil producer...