Word: petroleum
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When it comes to oil reserves, the U.S. is surely in the hole-as the American Petroleum Institute reiterated last week. The industry trade association reckoned that the nation's proven recoverable reserves dropped last year by 1.7 billion bbl., to 30.9 billion bbl. That is just one of many statistics measuring just what the U.S. has down there, for no industrial society gathers more energy information or has more computers to refine it. Yet the U.S. is woefully unaware of the real size of its energy resources...
Domestic oil production in recent weeks has hit an eleven-year low. The nation last month imported almost half of its petroleum, leaving the economy dangerously vulnerable to embargoes or price gouging by foreign suppliers. The U.S. bill for imported oil shot up from $2.7 billion in 1970 to $34 billion last year, draining from the country purchasing power badly needed to create jobs. Yet the Nixon and Ford administrations were unable to devise plans that Congress was willing to accept for stretching out supplies. Nixon's Project Independence, aimed at making the U.S. self-sufficient in fuel...
...strongest attacks on the bill will be waged by the forces seeking immediate and total deregulation of domestic petroleum and natural gas prices. Texas and Louisiana Democrats, as well as a number of laissez-faire Republicans, led by Representative Robert Krueger of Texas, will try to get the Government out of energy pricing altogether. They just might win. There is growing sentiment for a deregulation bill...
...world's largest. Their aim: to make the Soviet Union a major exporter by 1980 (at present, so few of the reserves have been tapped that the Soviets themselves import gas from Iran). The only deal involving Americans, however, is a tentative agreement between the Soviets, Occidental Petroleum, El Paso and a group of Japanese firms to develop a major field near Yakutsk in Siberia. After years of negotiating, the Soviets are still surveying the area. If the deal finally goes through, gas would be piped 2,000 miles to Vladivostok for shipment to the U.S. and Japan...
...Isaacs proposed towing giant, flat-topped icebergs from Antarctica (those from the Arctic would not be big enough) to the California coast; as they melted, fresh water could be siphoned out of the lakes that would form on top of them. The idea has impressed at least one country: petroleum-rich, water-poor Saudi Arabia. A French engineering firm hired by the Saudis is studying whether or not the plan is practical. Towed by six tugs, the French believe, an iceberg could make the 5,000-mile journey from the bottom of the world to the Red Sea port...