Oil: the Data Shortage

...American corporations jealously guard their figures—-in part because of fears that competitors will use them to exploit market situations and in part because of the traditional feeling that the Government (and the public) have no right to pry into the affairs of private corporations, no matter how big or dominant they may be...

...oil producers...

...For it is true, as John E. Hodges, director of API's Division of Statistics and Economics, says, that "if the Government didn't have our weekly statistical bulletin, it wouldn't have anything...

...The only thing that's clear to me is that we still have an awful lot of oil in the world, and are likely to find a lot more...

...dependence on Arab oil...

...petroleum experts believe—but have no way of knowing for certain—that as much or more Arab oil also got here after being transshipped or processed somewhere along the way, usually in the Caribbean...

...refineries, available supplies of refined petroleum products, exports and imports, production of domestic oil wells, and gasoline consumption...

...There is wide skepticism in Washington and elsewhere in the country —not only because of Nixon's personal credibility crisis, but also because of the uneasy feeling so many people have that the oil companies and not the Nixon Administration are in charge of whatever crisis there may be...

...And the industry obviously does not want the Government to get into the information-gathering business...

...It seems all but certain that out of the energy crisis will emerge audited government figures on the facts of oil and natural gas...

...Just as Arab import figures have jumped all over the place, so have Administration estimates of the dimensions of the overall U.S...

...There's just too much guesswork in estimating reserves...

...Oil pricing information is even scarcer...

...By October 30 the figure was up to 2.5 million barrels, and then, early in November, the Defense Department, never to be outdone even by the White House, proclaimed a three-million-barrel-a-day U.S...

...What government oil statistics there are come largely from the Interior Department's Bureau of Mines and Office of Oil and Gas...

...Not until last fall did the U.S...

...The figures are based on surveys made by geologists and others employed by oil and natural gas companies...

...Most Census Bureau figures, as well as statistics compiled by other government agencies, are based on unchecked material submitted by industry sources...

...To keep up with the fast-moving oil and gasoline situation, energy director Simon and his aides rely, however, not on the ponderous Bureau of Mines and Office of Oil and Gas, but rather on the API weekly bulletins...

...Once fuel oil, gasoline, and other petroleum products have left refineries, bulk terminals, and pipelines, neither the API nor any Government agency keeps track of the products...

...A recent Federal Trade Commission study concluded that natural gas reserves were overestimated, while an FPC study showed that gas reserves were being underestimated in at least one rich field...

...Senator Gaylord Nelson has presented the Senate with a plan to establish a Bureau of National Energy Information in the Commerce Department to collect and verify statistics involving all aspects of energy...

...How much oil and gasoline is kept in storage, or perhaps being hoarded, by large corporations and other heavy users of petroleum products...

...But are things as bad as the Nixon Administration has made them seem...

...These are unchecked industry figures issued only monthly...

...third, that consent, to be meaningful, even to be real, must be informed consent...

...Once crude oil from the Middle East or from any other area enters world commerce, its route is difficult to follow...

...Early in November, when President Nixon first talked about a serious shortage, he put the likely daily shortfall at 3.5 million barrels...

...API's Hodges says flatly that there are no good figures on overseas reserves...

...The API and the American Gas Association are the only sources for systematic compilations of what oilmen call proved reserves...

...I wouldn't argue one way or another about the reliability of the oil and natural gas reserve figures," a Senate staff aide who has been immersed in the quarrels over oil statistics observes...

...Of these figures, the only up-to-the-minute ones are for refinery production and available supplies, and even these must be viewed with some skepticism...

...oil being exported and then re-imported under more favorable prices...

...And even data published by the FPC on natural gas production are heavily dependent On unaudited reports from the industry...

...It would be useful to know as much about the oil industry as advertisers know, for example, about television audiences...

...2 heating oil is in supply lines...

...Such reserves are defined as oil and gas in the ground that can be efficiently recovered under current economic conditions in the industry, which means that reserves increase as oil prices go up...

...How much gasoline is generally in the supply pipelines beyond the primary storage facilities of the refiners, the bulk terminals, and the big pipelines...

...oil bears no serial numbers or other distinguishing marks of manufactured goods...

...oil shortage this winter...

...As everyone concerned with the oil crisis, from energy czar William Simon to Senator Henry M. Jackson, has quickly come to realize, the United States has all too few solid figures on oil and natural gas, and for what statistics are available the Government is almost wholly dependent on the oil industry itself...

...Oil is by no means the only industry for which audited statistics are hard to come by...

...Julius Duscha is director of the Washington Journalism Center...

...Simon came out at 2.7 million barrels at the news conference late in December at which he outlined the Administration's standby gasoline rationing plans...

...The Federal Government could be forgiven the wide variances in its estimates of Arab oil imports were it not for the fact that the Arab import statistics are symptomatic of the problem with most petroleum figures...

...Whether the oil statistics are proclaimed by Simon's Federal Energy Office or by Jackson's Senate Interior Committee, almost all of the figures originate with the American Petroleum Institute, the trade association of the major U.S...

...He is the author of "Arms, Money, and Politics" and "Taxpayer's Hayride...

...However, U.S...

...They are, first of all, industry figures supplied on a voluntary basis, with no independent check on their accuracy...

...However unreliable figures on U.S...

...Bureau of Labor Statistics start collecting enough information on retail gasoline prices to come up with reasonably accurate figures on gasoline price trends throughout the nation...

...fourth, that the free exchange and availability of industrial as well as political information are therefore the lifeblood of a free society...

...Import and export statistics are based on U.S...

...When estimates varied within a month all the way from 1.2 million to three million barrels, it was obvious that no one in the Federal Government knew with any accuracy how much Arab oil was being used in the United States...

...But Simon's energy office has set up a committee to review oil and gasoline statistics, and Simon himself told reporters at his late December news conference: "You're darn right we're going to get better figures...

...The statisticians do know that last September shipments of oil directly from the Middle East to the United States averaged 1.2 million barrels a day...

...oil and natural gas reserves may be, there is general agreement even among oil industry economists that statistics on foreign reserves are hopeless...

...The oil industry certainly is in charge of whatever statistical evidence there is to back up the crisis atmosphere...

...There is more information on natural gas because most of its production and prices at the wellhead are still regulated by the Federal Power Commission, but the Nixon Administration has called for ending such regulation...

...The fact that more information is available about how to influence television viewers than about oil says much about the haphazard ways of the American economy and the relationship of the Government to it...

...And there simply are no reliable figures on crude oil production costs, refinery costs, and costs on down the petroleum supply pipelines...

...The United Spates thus finds itself groping for facts as it faces what appears to be the most serious fuel shortage in its history...

...Every Wednesday, refinery production and available-supply figures are made public for the previous week, and even oil industry critics agree that the statistics could hardly be produced much faster and still be put together with reasonable accuracy and cost...

...The official state figures lag months behind, as do accurate gasoline consumption figures based on state and Federal tax figures...

...BLS and population figures are, of course, the Government's own...

...Industry lobbyists fought against inclusion of a Government fact-gathering clause in the energy legislation that was shoved aside in the pre-Christmas Congressional adjournment rush...

...Beyond the energy crisis," Nelson continues, "the basic premises of this legislation are, first, that the power of giant corporations over the quality of life has become so great that such corporations must now be regarded as if they were governments, for govern they do j second, that governments—including corporate governments—derive their just powers from the consent of the governed...

...Every spring API, AGA, and the Canadian Petroleum Association jointly publish a detailed compilation of crude oil and natural gas reserves in the United States and Canada...

...it is rather that there are no reliable figures for them to count...

...Four more days passed, and on October 24 the Administration estimate escalated to two million barrels...

...A recent New York Times survey indicated that major users of oil products have been building up their supplies, but there is no reliable statistical information available...

...Eight days later, on October 20, the Nixon Administration was talking about U.S...

...How much No...

...We have failed to manage energy because we have failed to manage energy information," Nelson says...

...The problem isn't that Federal oil economists and statisticians can't count...

...dependence on Arab oil totaling 1.6 million barrels daily...

...The API's basic statistical document is its Weekly Statistical Bulletin, which purports to keep track of the output of U.S...

...and fifth, that the Congress has no higher duty than to provide channels and mechanisms for the exchange and availability of information about the holders and uses of governing power...

...We are sitting in the dark because we have been making our energy policy in the dark...

...As for the domestic crude oil production figures, they are estimates based on the most recent statistics from the Texas Railroad Commission and the other regulatory agencies that monitor production in the thirty-one oil-producing states...

...Customs Bureau figures, with which no one quarrels much, except that the figures give no hint of the country where the crude oil was produced, or any indication of U.S...

...It is generally assumed that the industry has a vested interest in underestimating reserves, but government oil experts cannot even agree on that...

...The basic figures on supply of oil and gas remain the best kept secrets of the Energy Crisis Oil: the Data Shortage JULIUS DUSCHA Last October 12, when the Arab-Israeli war was beginning to raise fears of an Arab boycott of oil sales to the United States, White House petroleum expert Charles Di Bona said American imports of Arab oil had been averaging 1.2 million barrels a day...

...But if oil production and supply statistics cause problems, figures on oil and natural gas reserves are even more difficult to weigh and interpret...

...Since then estimates by experts within the Administration and on Capitol Hill have ranged all the way down to 1.6 million barrels...