Page 2-Tuesday, May 22, 1979-The Michigan Daily
ADMINISTRATION BLAMES GAS SHOR TAGE ON MIDEAST UNREST
Executives deny withholding oil to raise pri
Conftnaedtrom Page 1)
"I DON'T KNOW of any oil being O'Leary said he doesn't know of any demand. "significantly short" of the crude oli
withheld for higher prices," said James easy ways for oil companies to stretch The chairman of the energy commit- needs.
DeNike, a vice president of Shell Oil Co. their tight supplies any further. tee, Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.), Price said the ultimate solution to the
DeNike said his firm could use The problem is less crude oil and a said this year's shortage is a re-run of energy crisis involves increasing the
another 1.5 million barrels of imported higher demand, especially for gasoline, the 1973 Arab oil embargo. This time, country's use of coal and synthetic
oil daily to keep its refineries running at O'Leary testified. he said, the Mideast oil countries are fuels, more conservation and added is.
capacity. a"THERE IS A shortage," O'Leary n limiting production in order-to drive up centives for the oil companies to ex-
"I can't answer that," O'Leary said. said, "and the fault for that shortage is the price. plore for more oil and natural gas.
He acknowledged that some oil is the revolution in Iran." Iran has "There is no reasonable limit to that Annon Card, a Texaco vice president
proba bly being held back, but said resumed production, O'Leary said, and in the short run," Jackson said said world crude oil shortages likel
companies doing so may be acting only now is world production coming J. W. PRICE, vice president of will continue into the 1980s.
prudently to maintain their inventories. roughly in balance with daily world Chevron, testified his company is
Europeans accuse U.S. of guzzling oil
PARIS (AP) - European energy
ministers yesterday accused the United
States of guzzling the world's oil
resources and warned of serious
economic consequences if oil shortages
persist.
U.S. Secretary for Energy James
Schlesinger told accusers at a meeting
of ministers from 20 industrial nations
they would have to be patient until
America resolved the debate as to
"whether or not there is a real problem
with regard to oil."
The ministers were meeting as mem-
bers of the International Energy Agen-
cy, an organization intended asa sort of
Western counterweight to the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries. The United States is a mem-
ber of the organization.
IN A TOUGHLY worded speech,
released outside the closed-door
session, Guido Brunner, energy com-
missioner of the European Economic
Community, charged that Americans
were consuming twice as much oil per
person as Europeans.
"Neither the world economy as a
whole nor the international monetary
system will be in a position to sustain
American oil imports at the present
magnitude," Brunner said.
Schlesinger replied that while the oil
squeeze "seems to be self-evident to
members of the IEA and to OPEC, it is
not self-evident to the people of my,
country, nor to the Congress."
THE IRANIAN revolution had
brought forward "the day of reckoning,
tightened the oil markets and created a
position in which our logistical systems
are stretched taut," Schlesinger said.
"While there is a great debate in the
United States whether the oil shortages
are real or whether they were contrived
by some mysterious force, I think that
the message is getting through to the
American people."
He said U.S. consumption was sub-
stantially below last year's level.
Seeking to mollify those ministers in
whose countries motorists pay two
times as much as Americans for
gasoline, Schlesinger said he was sure
the United States would be able to in-
crease its oil prices to the level of the in-
ternational market.
SCHLESINGER did not elaborate.
Prices for gasoline among European
Common Market countries range from
about $1.40 a gallon for regular gas in
Britain to $2.47 a gallon in France for
premium - including much higher
taxes than in the United States.
In Washington, oil company
executives clashed Monday with Senate
opponents of President Carter's decon-
trol program over whether the industry
was withholding fuel from the market
until it could obtain higher prices.
Carter's plan phases out federal price
controls on domestic crude oil starting
June 1.
THE EXECUTIVES denied that fuel
was being withheld for higher prices.
James DeNike, a vice-president of Shell
Oil Co., said the U.S. problem is low
domestic oil production.
The IEA ministers, in a strategy
session on policies for dealing with oil
supplies and prices, heard reports that
warned of a worldwide economic crisis
if oil shortages continue unabated.
The bleak picture was dramatized
when Sweden, whose economy was un-
til recently one of the strongest in the
world, asked for emergency aid from
other participating countries to make
up a 17 per cent shortfall in oil supplies.
Organization members are pledged in a
contingency plan to provide each other
with emergency supplies.
THE CURRENT meeting is intended
as a follow-up to an October session in
which members were asked to cut their
imports. But Brunner claimed that ef-
forts to reduce imports had failed so
far, "because the United States was not
in a position to act accordingly."'
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- $23
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U.S.
criticism
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.Iran
(Continued from Page 1)
ginia said, "I am glad Iran has taken
notice of the Senate action."
YAZDI WARNED that the future of
U.S.-Iranian relations is in American
hands, and reminded Washington of a
commitment by Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance to "friendly" relations
between the countries.
Yazdi said it was only natural that
criminals of the old regime should be
punished now. Revolutionary courta
have condemned 213 people since
February.
"A revolution has taken place in our
country, he said. "What surprised us is
the fact that the past regime killed our
youth, but the U.S. Senate maintained
silence on these killings."
THE 79-YEAR-OLD Iranian
revolutionary and religious leader,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
delivered a blistering attack on the
Senate resolution on state radio Sunday
and newspapers yesterday proclaimed
the darkest era in U.S.-Iranian
relations since the revolution toppled
pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza
Pahlavi's monarchy in February.
The Mojahdeen guerrilla group, a
heavily armed political and military
body, has said that a day of anti-
American protests will be held Friday.
Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the chief of
Iranian radio and television and a close
aide to Khomeini, said in an interview
yesterday that Iranians could not all be
expected to differentiate between U.S.
government policy and the declarations
of an independent Senate.
"Unfortunately, the actions of
Americans overall in this country have
been so abusive in the past that it is
practically impossible at this time to
try to differentiate one element from
another," he claimed.
THE MICIGAN DAILY
(USPS 344-900)
volume LXXXIX, No. 15-5
Tuesdav. May 22. 1979
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