The Nation's Pulse/What Oil Crisis?
Myers, Richard J.
THE NATION'S PULSE WHAT OIL CRISIS? by Richard J. Myers T o hear the experts tell it, the United States is lurching toward a reprise of the 1970s energy crisis. With the collapse in world oil...
...Although today's low prices are depressing exploration and production in the U.S...
...Atop the current surplus of three trillion cubic feet, there is another 1.2-2.5 Tcf a year of supply that can be brought into production within 12 months, according to the American Gas Association, a gas industry trade group...
...xv, 6Opp...
...58.00...
...The Synthetic Fuels Corporation collapsed, mercifully, before it squandered more than a few billion dollars on plants that produce synthetic oil and gas at prices three or four times today's level...
...r ossocric•icr with I.-, Pc.c.e, School o' arid Diolo,coy...
...nian University in Cracow...
...won't have the resources—geologists, drilling contractors, and other oilfield specialists—needed when prices turn back up...
...By Dean Godson...
...The doomsday rhetoric of Herrington and his fellow experts is wildly inappropriate, and shows a curious reluctance to learn the lessons of the 1970s...
...1987...
...Jornes E Dougherty, Robert J Flanks, and Cnorles M Pony 1987 or, 56pp $9.95...
...The Soviet Perspective on the Strategic Defense Initiative...
...Unemployment in the petroleum sector, although painful for those affected, must be considered in the context of the entire U.S...
...all alter countries, $2.00 per book...
...The federal government's response to the oil embargo of 1973-74 was a policy document called "Project Independence...
...ISBN 0.08-035543-9...
...Mikheyev...
...Like all the rest of us, OPEC's members saw what happened the last time they tried this, in 1979-80...
...ATM options in the near term, including nonnuclear air defense spinoffs from the current U.S...
...and Conodo, $1.00 per book...
...1987...
...That's up from production of 884 million tons last year...
...Finally, the pessimism about oil and gas and the high expectations for synthetic fuels and electric power demand produced a consensus that more than two billion tons of U.S...
...Because the fundamentals change slowly, mistakes are not soon discovered, nor soon repaired...
...By William A. Davis, Jr...
...1987...
...47pp...
...oil production declined...
...ISBN 008-035175-1...
...I n spite of the lessons of the recent past, there are several myths about energy policy still being perpetuated today...
...If OPEC tries to drive up oil prices again in the 1990s, the same non-OPEC production surge will happen again...
...There's no doubt last year's collapse in oil prices was accompanied by a large contraction in the petroleum business...
...in Physics horn Me Moscow State University, was arrested by Me KGB and formally charged with treason, served a six-year sentence Ina labor camp tor political dissidents...
...S-2, Cambridge, MA 02139-3396...
...SDI: Has America Told Her Story to the Wald...
...It became clear rather quickly that this price would not stick and within a year, by 1981, crisis and shortage had turned into outright surplus...
...This view takes no account of the surge in non-OPEC oil production that followed OPEC's attempts to run up oil prices in the 1970s...
...This study of how the Soviet leadership views the U.S...
...The more likely prospect is for gradual price increases roughly in step with inflation, as with hundreds of other consumer goods...
...and Soviet Strategic Defense Programs: Implications for NM-lean Arnedcon Deployment Options...
...the participation of allies in the American SDI program...
...1986...
...xii, gaup S9 95 ISBN 0-08-035545-5...
...In other words, the size of the U.S...
...By Donald C. Daniel, Mold Duval, H F. ZeinerGunder sen, Sergio A Rossi, Goal D Torleton...
...annual gas consumption—and stands at about three trillion cubic feet even today...
...NATO's Modems Strategy: Issues and Developments...
...The last fourteen years demonstrates conclusively that nothing could be further from the truth...
...it had no such cushion in the early 1970s...
...would need 800-or-so nuclear power plants by the turn of the century...
...Somebody needs to sound the energy warning," said Energy Secretary John Herrington in March, when he released a 400-page assessment of America's energy prospects called Energy Security...
...natural gas demand outran available supply because federal price controls at the wellhead had crippled new exploration...
...These volumes, comprised of papers authored by Arnencan and European onalysts...
...This alarmist view is shared by the energy industries, many analysts in academia and think tanks, and Ronald Reagan's Department of Energy...
...ISBN 0-08-035748-2...
...They could begin by reviewing the consensus predictions made by the experts of those earlier days...
...oil and gas industry ballooned dramatically in the early 1980s as prices rose to unsustainable levels...
...requirements...
...And, of course, the U.S...
...If this trend continues unchecked, the industry warns, the U.S...
...strategy...
...In a massive miscalculation, it forecast that oil imports in 1985 would be higher than total oil consumption in that year proved to be...
...With the collapse in world oil prices last year—from about $25 a barrel in January to, briefly, about $11 in July—U.S...
...will not need 800 nuclear plants by the year 2000, although it may need a few more than the 100-or-so now in operation...
...consider the strategic, operational, and technological impact el the resurgence or naval affairs in Western defense planning...
...E F Gamin...
...will be subject to another price shock or, worse, interruptions in supply...
...This is the elasticity that comes from technological advances...
...Electricity demand growth today is closer to two percent a year...
...The author assesses the technological, economic, political, crd ideological implications of the SDI program, likely Soviet reactions to these challenges, and the role SDI might play in the context of a larger U.S...
...By Nomron Friedman...
...All but two of the OPEC members recorded current account deficits in 1986 and are expected to do the same this year...
...ISBN 0-89549-070-6...
...Strategic Defense nitiative in Western Europe...
...examines the nadequote U S. Warts to gain public acceptance for SDI abroad...
...Army BMD program official, argues that the current focus at SDI research must be modified, so as to place greater emphasis on the dever opment of near-term, rapidly deployable options for the defense of American strategic assets...
...This assumes that the cartel is a powerful, cohesive, monolithic juggernaut...
...With similar trends at work in the rest of the industrial world, demand for OPEC oil will surely climb...
...rr here's also a myth about OPEC 1 that defies the historical record...
...Then the DOE study makes a telling point: "Current oil industry employment of about 424,000 is at about the same level as in 1977, before the industry expansion that resulted from the 1979/80 oil price increase...
...Third, growth in demand for all fuels today is markedly lower than it was in the early 1970s...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1987 27 Then there's the myth of the disappearing oil and gas industry...
...As recently as 1981, the energy experts also agreed Richard J Myers...
...It is difficult to conceive of the logic that would inspire them to wreck their market position for five years or so in return for the very short-term gain resulting from much higher prices...
...ISBN 0-08-035956-6...
...born in the Soviet Union in 1941, received his Ph.D...
...1986...
...coal production would be needed by 2000...
...in fact, it's unlikely they will exceed $30 a barrel (in today's dollars...
...is not likely to face a 1970s-style energy crisis again...
...And with that many nuclear plants, the U.S...
...the contraction of alternative European frameworks within which to develop anti-tactical ballistic missile defenses...
...In the second volume, the author examines Soviet ATBM developments and the Soviet tactical missile threat, and assesses viable U.S...
...Tra cuthar of these studies, c former U.S...
...In this study al President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, the authors examine the relationship between SDI are air defense in the NATO-European security environment...
...NEW PUBLICATIONS on the Soviet Union, European Security, and Strategic Defense Asymmetries in U.S...
...The members of this Panel ore Evan G. Galbraith, Charles M. lichenslein, Gale W. McGee, John P. Roche...
...Chronic, growing shortages were inevitable...
...And fourth, OPEC's members are unlikely to jeopardize their tenuous financial position...
...In short, the U.S...
...Left unchecked, he added, today's trends "have serious implications for national security...
...Oil lobbyists like to talk about this issue because it supports their pleadings for preferential tax treatment or a fee on imported oil...
...9.95...
...Put another way, let's not be too eager to embrace ideas like oil import fees or other heroic measures that interfere with the market...
...SDI program...
...and elsewhere, tomorrow's higher prices will reverse that decline...
...First among them is the mistakennotion that non-OPEC oil and natural gas production is now declining inevitably, which will allow OPEC to position its boot on the world's throat...
...FP Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc...
...TJ"s Jniversity 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1987...
...This new equipment offers much higher efficiencies in tasks as varied as steelmaking, cooking, water heating, and space heating...
...Hence the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a quasi-governmental agency endowed with $88 billion to be disbursed to large synthetic fuels projects in the form of loan guarantees and price supports...
...Ten years ago, residential gas furnaces were 50-60 percent efficient...
...By Jacquelyn K Davis and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr...
...and the Soviet Union's own substantiol research program in strategic defense...
...By Francis J West, Jr., Jacquenth K. Doves...
...ix, 70pp...
...Instead of chronic shortages of natural gas, the U.S...
...A global crisis looms...
...The Department of Energy's recent energy study notes that "by the end of 1986, 150,000 oil industry jobs had been lost—representing close to 30 percent of the total work force devoted tooil and gas exploration and oil field services...
...1987...
...economy...
...This is a long way from a disappearing indtstry...
...foreign policy and economic growth, the experts say, will be hostage to the caprice of the oil producers' cartel...
...None of these hysterical forecastscame to pass...
...The U.S...
...By William A. Davis, Jr...
...The response to rising prices was so quick and so effective that the gas surplus soared to about 4.5 trillion cubic feet (1U') in 1983—roughly one-quarter of U.S...
...Clarence A. Robinson, and Wiliam R. Van Cleave...
...NOV01 Farces and West= Security...
...The U.S...
...A special IFPA Panel on Public Diplomacy analyzes official and public reactions to the U.S...
...inally, there are at least four other reasons why the U.S...
...Until at least the mid-1970s, many of the experts insisted that the U.S...
...and bureoucralic inefficiency at communist systems, with special attention tome maroon in Poland...
...By the early 1990s, oil imports will reach about half of total U.S...
...viii, 51pp...
...To this the experts reply that it will take many years before higher prices encourage increased production...
...and recommends specific public diplomacy programs to explain the nature and purpose of SDI in order town public support it Western Europe for ms important Reagan Administration policy...
...What possible reason could they have to attempt such rapacious pricing again...
...Over the last ten years, the gas industry has developed a new generation of hardware for industrial users, commercial establishments, and homeowners...
...Hundreds of thousands of people were forced out of work and hundreds of companies wentout of business...
...In fact, without Saudi Arabia, OPEC probably would not exist today...
...and Milan Vego...
...Besides the elasticity of supply to rising prices, there is another important elasticity that reduces the likelihood of energy problems in the future...
...Within a very short time, shortage had turned into sufficiency and by 1981 or 1982, sufficiency had turned into surplus...
...ISBN 608-035544-7...
...Spurred on by higher prices, non-OPEC production rose by almost 30 percent between 1979 and 1985—from about 21.5 million barrels a day in 1980 to its current rate of almost 27 million barrels a day...
...SDI prog am does not rest on the declarations of the Kremlin but on an analysis ditto Soviet political mentality and its influence an the Soviet worldview...
...the new models are over 90 percent efficient...
...economy...
...For example, in 1979-80, OPEC managed to drive the price of oil up to nearly $40 a barrel...
...The Saudis managed to sustain the appearance of a cartel between 1980 and 1985 only by steadily cutting their own production, from about 10 million barrels a day to below 3 million barrels a day...
...And, of course, coal production will not approach two billion tons a year by the turn of the century...
...Oil consumption and oil imports rose...
...Another example: in the late 1970s, U.S...
...Last year's price collapse let some air out of the balloon...
...In 1978, Congress passed the Natural Gas Policy Act, which partly deregulated wellhead prices...
...Unlike 1973-74, the OPEC countries' need for revenue from oil sales—either to sustain development or to finance depredations against their neighbors—is as great as America's need for oil...
...Orders for these books may be addressed to the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 675 Massachusetts Avenue, 10th Floor, Dept...
...xi( 79pp $9 95...
...By Pelt R luchvikowsin 1986 se 79pp $9 95 ISBN 0-08-034496-8 Professor Ludwi k owsk formerly Professor of Low and Polihcs at me Jagello...
...Even in the unlikely event that OPEC can act in concert, it stretches credulity to assume that it will attempt to run oil prices up quickly and drastically...
...has natural gas aplenty...
...does not face an imminent energy crisis or a threat to its security...
...Richard Ft Shultz, John R. Silber, and Richard B. Stone...
...who left Poland in 1982, examines the economic stagnation, moral decoy, social unrest...
...59.95...
...is expected to decline slowly through the end of the century, even though the number of homes using gas will increase...
...Strategic Defense and Extended Deterrence: A New Transatlantic Debate...
...ISBN 0-08-0346839 Regime...
...That fear is unfounded...
...has a 515-millionbarrel oil reserve today...
...was expelled in 1979, and has become an American citizen...
...that oil would cost $100 a barrel by 2000 which, coupled with ever-rising oil imports, would surely bankrupt the U.S...
...As it does, the experts warn, OPEC will use its power to manipulate the oil market and boost oil prices—as it did in 1973 and again after the fall of the Shah in 1979 and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war a year later...
...formerly editor of the Energy Daily is a free-lance business writer in Washington, D.C...
...grew by 2.4 million between the third quarter of 1985 and the third quarter of 1986, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics...
...59.95...
...First, the U.S...
...NATO's Ranks: Problems awl Prospects...
...Recent developments, both in Soviet naval capabilities and Western force postures...
...hove brought renewed attention and analysis to the maritime aspects of NATO secunty...
...The Crisis at Communism: Its Meaning: Oripins: and Phases...
...While oil industry employment slipped by 150,000, non-agricultural employment in the U.S...
...In fact, reasonable expectations indicate that a little more than half that will be quite enough...
...Please include payment, plus postage and handling charges (to addresses In U.S...
...Recent history shows clearly that the market, left to itself, responds quite rapidly—not overnight, to be sure, but in months rather than in years...
...the potential inherent in SDI technologies for conventional defense missions...
...88PP...
...Security and Anti-Tactical Babbfk Missiles: Pdltkal owl- Technical Inuit...
...Poland...
...He traces Me crisis of communism back to Ine practices and instrnMons of the Lenin and Stalin was, and asserts tnot there s a growing awareness within me communist bloc that Me detects or the system are me mediable since they reside in the inherent nature al the communist system Navel home mod *Ramo SeezRy TOR SORITO PERSOURRTI IV Plartli WOO NTS...
...Growth in electricity demand, for example, will never again approach the 7-percent-a-year pace of the 1960s and early 1970s...
...There is no evidence that gas supply will be constrained until well into the next century...
...Even in the U.S., where the experts predicted a sharp drop in oil output, production between 1975 and 1985 was flat to slightly increasing...
...has an apparently chronic surplus...
...In energy policy, "experience suggests that quick fixes often do more harm than good," says Robert Fri, president of Resources for the Future in Washington...
...Second, major oil users—industry and power plants—are much more capable of switching from oil to other fuels like natural gas on very short notice...
...OPEC has shown repeatedly that it is a fragile coalition riddled with crippling internal rivalries...
...Similar developments are underway in electricity...
...Natural gas is asplendid example...
...would quickly run short of cheap uranium fuel which, in turn, led the experts to press for accelerated development of breeder reactors...
...This effort, which should concentrate an the development of a layered defense al the terminal and late mid-course phases of ballistic missile attack, Is held to be a necessary response to the vast scale of Soviet offensive weapons development and to continuing Soviet research and development in the area of strategic defense...
...By Dolby Mikheyev...
...The experts tell us that, by the early 1990s, OPEC will be able to manipulate the market...
...And that growth was due at least partly to the salutary effect of low oil prices on the economy...
...9.95...
...Oil prices will not reach $100 a barrel by the turn of the century...
...All through the 1970s, the experts in government and the energy industry predicted that the U.S...
...was running out of natural gas...
...Thanks to advances like these, residential demand for gas in the U.S...
...In this context, rising oil imports and embargoes are no threat...
Vol. 20 • June 1987 • No. 6
