Word: petroleum
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...polarization of the Arab world has cast a pall over a planned 20th anniversary celebration for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Originally scheduled to be held in Baghdad this month, the event was canceled two weeks ago because of the hostilities. The war also dimmed prospects for an Arab League summit meeting, planned for Nov. 25 in Amman. Seven Arab foreign ministers gathered in the Jordanian capital last week to draw up an agenda, but produced little more than vague declarations on the need for "pan-Arab good will...
...bombs appear to have been dropped on Baghdad proper. The raids have been contained for the most part to the French-built nuclear energy facility just outside the city and industrial targets in the suburbs. One direct hit, in particular, on petroleum storage tanks next to a power station, caused a huge fire that turned Baghdad's blackout into a stage setting for Götterdämmerung. The minarets and distinctive egg-shaped domes of the city's mosques were silhouetted against a sky that glowed deep crimson all night long...
...Petroleum markets remained calmer than in 1979 largely because the world's oil-importing nations have bulging inventories. Japan has a 111-day supply, some of it stored in tankers swinging at anchor in Japanese ports. Observes one top oil industry executive in New York City caustically: "The Japanese would like to panic, but they have no place to put any more...
Another global petroleum price explosion would be bad enough for the U.S. and other industrialized countries. The pain would be far worse for the financially strapped countries of the developing world. Some of the nations needing the largest amount of assistance are Turkey, South Korea and Brazil, which have already climbed up from abject poverty and now desperately need imported oil to fuel their industrialization...
...McNamara pointed out in his valedictory to the World Bank, the non-oil-exporting nations of the developing world face painful economic adjustments and much slower growth in the years ahead just to keep from sinking any deeper into the petroleum bog. Aid from the industrial nations, complained McNamara, "remains a minuscule and insignificant fraction of their gross national product and is wholly inadequate to the urgent needs at hand...