ustxtxb_obs_1973_12_28_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

The Calgary Calgary Herald reported Nov. 29 that U.S. petroleum marketers appear to be reducing their purchases of Saskatchewan medium crude oil, despite the current energy crisis. Since Canada has very limited storage facilities, the Saskatchewan government ordered a 16 percent cutback of production in the southeast area and a 40 percent reduction in the southwest portion of the province. “On the basis of a claimed shortage of reserves of natural gas, consumers over the next decade are being asked to accept price increases that by some estimates could run into hundreds of billions of dollars. “Yet the government the executive branch, the Congress and the independent large that it doesn’t know, and isn’t really trying to determine on a comprehensive reliable and useful basis, the extent of the nation’s reserves. “The FPC is pervaded by hostility if not hatred for its Office of Economics, the only unit of the agency to argue that prices of natural gas should continue to be based on production costs so long as proof is lacking that letting prices soar will increase supplies. “Some economists of the agency put heavy blame on President Nixon, because he has not provided a traditional kind of safety valve for internal dissent: just one consumer-oriented commissioner to join his four industry-oriented appointees.” Morton Mintz, The Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1973. “Although petrochemicals are in short supply at home because of the energy crisis, Commerce Department figures show that petrochemical exports from January through October were above 1972 levels. November figures are not yet available, but some exports continued to exceed 1972 levels because of higher prices abroad. . Experts analyzing the complicated Commerce Department figures said that export volume was running about 10 to 15 percent above 1972 levels through October. They said the dollar value was about 35 percent above the 1972 figure.” Richard L. Stern, Associated Press business writer, The Austin American Statesman, Dec. 12, 1973. Bob Bullock, the former Texas secretary of state who is running for comptroller in 1974, says that any attempt by the Nixon administration to jack up the federal gasoline tax “would be highway robbery.” “We may very well have shortages of various products and natural resources for the rest of our lives,” he said. “Does the administration intend to levy exorbitant taxes every time an item becomes scarce just to reduce consumption? What has become of the principle of fair and equitable taxation?” ar Ast.. 12 Me ra….4.4 Columnist Jack Anderson reports that oil and gas sources pumped at least $5 million into President Nixon’s 1972 campaign. “This may help explain why the great oil crisis doesn’t seem to have hurt the big oil companies. Only their customers are suffering,” Anderson says. Six days after the current Arab oil embargo began, the Gulf Oil Corp. donated $2 million to Arab civilian war relief efforts. Gulf’s manager of public communications said there’s no connection between the donation and the fact that 75 percent of Gulf’s crude oil reserves are in Kuwait. The two mil probably didn’t even put a crimp in the oil company’s pocketbook, since its third quarter earnings this year are 90.9 percent higher than those reported during the same period last year. The nation’s 10 largest oil companies deliberately slowed down their refinery output last year and the slowdown contributed heavily to the current fuel shortage, according to a report by Sen. Henry Jackson’s permanent investigation subcommittee. The oil firms acted siniultaneously in the spring of 1972 to reduce their refining capacity by at least 3 percent. The amount of heating oil produced during the period was cut back by a full 10 percent. “The consumer had better get busy learning about prices and wondering why the oil companies sell gasoline wholesale at 21 cents a gallon when it costs them only 4 cents a gallon on the average to provide it. He had better start investigating _pipeline and production costs, too, and had better find out what it costs the companies to get oil into the top end of the trans-Alaska pipeline and how much they will sell it for at the bottom end when it is finally built. The latest gasoline price hikes are an ominous harbinger of things to come.” Christopher T. Rand, “The Arabian Fantasy,” Harper’s Magazine,4, January, 1974. 1 – 1=1C 61 COISOW . . \( S 4 ;., .. , >1` “A Federal Power Commission economist disclosed yesterday that at least 13 major producers of natural gas understated their reserves in reports to the agency that were misleading if not false .. . “The testimony of John W. Wilson, chief of the Division of Economic Studies, struck at the validity of the companies’ claims that gas reserves are in short supply. The claimed shortage is cited by the Nixon administration, the FPC and the oil industry to justify price increases through the agency and through proposed de-regulation legislation that by some estimates could cost natural gas consumers hundreds of billions of dollars within 10 years.” Morton Mintz, The Washington Post Oct. 19, 1973 December 28, 1973 9