Tuesday, May 14, 1974

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Five

K Tuesday, May 14, 1974 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five

i

Saigon.
round
By MICHAEL MORROW
rIRTY-FOUR oil exploration
companies have qualified
for bidding on South Vietnam's
second round of offshore conces-
sions in the South China sea.
Saigon's National Petroleum
Board has announced that 50
blocks covering 100,000 square
miles have been designated for
petroleum exploration and de-
velopment, with 32 offered now
and 18 being held at a national
reserve. Contracts are expected
to be awarded later this year.
Bidders include the majors
Exxon, Shell, Mobil, Gulf and
CFP, the French National Pe-
troleum Company.
Increasingly concerned over
the threat to their traditional
control of crude oil production in
the Arab producing states, the
major international petroleum
giants are seeking alternative

opens second
of oil bidding

sources of supply. Taking ad-
vantage of legislation passed by
the Saigon government in De-
cember 1970, they are staking
claims to the last "open" seg-
ment of the South China Sea's
vast oil basin, off the Mekong
Delta.
IN JULY, 1973, preliminary
concessions were awarded Shell,
Mobil, Esso Exploration (Ex-
xon), and Sunningdale, a small
Canadian company. Shell receiv-
ed three concession blocks, Mo-
bil two, Exxon two, and Sun-
aingdale one. Shell later took in
Cities Service on a 50-50 joint
venture. Kaiyo Oil, a Japanese
company backed in part by the
Japan Petroleum Development
Corporation, joined Mobil as a
30 per cent partner in ias two)
blocks.
Under the terms of these con-

Stratford-on-Watergate

By DICK WEST
WASHINGTON (UPI) - If
anyone is to have the l as t
word on the Watergate tape
transcripts, let it be William
Shakespeare.
There have been so many con-
flicting analyses of the tran-
scripts, we badly need a differ-
ent perspective. So let us view
them from the vantage point of
someone who has been dead for
358 years.
Below, gleaned from his many
deathless lines, are a few
Shakespearian quotes quotable
to the occasion. The "S" is the
Immortal Bard and the "W" is
y'r h'mbl' c'rr'sp'nd'nt.
W: MR. Shakespeare, a great
number of expletives were de-
leted from the transcripts. What
is an expletive?
S: "A good mouth-filling
oath."
W: Do you find it shocking
that the President of the Unit-
ed States would use such lang-
uage?
S: "That in the captain's but
a choleric word which in the
soldier is flat blasphemy."
W. What would you say was
the general tenor of the con-
versations between the Pr:'si-
dent and his aides as they di,-
cussed what to do about Water-
gate?
S. "MACHINATIONS, hollow-
ness, treachery, and all ruinous
disorders. A deal of skimble-
skamble staff. 0! What men
dare do! What men may do!
What men daily do, not know-
ing what they do!"
W: How did the President re-
act when John Dean first told
him the extent of White
House involvement?
S: "Big round tears coursed
one another down his innocent
nose in piteous chase."
W: Do you think the Preside-t
had any part in arranging or
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approving the cover-up?
S: "I AM cabin'd, cribb'd,
confined, bound in- to saucy
doubts and fears."
W: What do the transcripts
show with respect to the White
House aides?
S: "They that touch pitch will
be defiled."
W: How did the White House
approach the problem?
S: "One foot in sea and one
on shore; to one thing constant
never."
W: But didn't John Dean give
the impression he had the sitaa-
tion well in hand?
S: "Hear him debate of c.m-
monwealth affairs, you would
say it hath been all in all his
study. Turn him to any cause of
policy, the Gordian knot (f it
he will unloose."
W: NIXON acknowledges the
transcripts would be embarras-
sing, but he released them in
the belief they would help im
avoid impeachment. Was the
risk justified?
S: "All's well that ends in-
audible."
W: Wouldn't a brief sumtmry
have done as well?
S: "Brevity is the soul of un-
intelligible."
W: Thank you, Mr. Shakes-
peare.

tracts, 9 wells must be drilled I v
July, 1975: three by Shell, tw)
each by Mobil and Sunn ngdale,
and one by Esso. Dcilling my
begin late this year ar early
1975.
Similar pressures ftr c(i r 1 y
development will probably be in-
cluded in contracts for tts se-
cond round. Ships laden with
electronic gear have been con-
ducting geological surveys for
years in the South China S e a,
and the companies ira anlmost
certain to bring in profitable
wells.
SOUTH VIETNAM'S Pitv's-
ional government, which under
the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement
shares sovereignty with t h e
Saigon administration, has de-
nounced Saigon's earlier conces-
sion awards. In a July 20, 1973
broadcast, the PRG called the
awards "an illegal, traitorous
and anti-popular move. The Sai-
go administration . . . repre-
sents nobody, and has no right
to sign any agreement on the
extraction of oil in South Viet-
nam."
According to the Chase Man-
hattan Bank, $35 billion will be
invested for petroleum develop-
ment in the South China Sea
over the next decade. Despite
the precarious situation of Sai-
gon's Thieu regime, oil men ap-
pear relaxed about gambling
over the highly promising con-
cession areas.
They reason that even if
Thieu goes, a coalition govern-
ment, and not the PRG, will re-
place his regime. Moreover, any
government in South Vietnam
will need the revenue. They are
also encouraged by the 1973
agreement struck by Italy's
state company, ENI, and North
Vietnam.
OIL MEN feel that the pre-
sent contracts, written along the
lines of the old-fashioned Middle
East agreements, out even more
favorable to the companies, will
eventually have to be renego-
tiated. But they are confident
that they will be able to hold
on to acreage covered in the
leases now being let.
Michael Morrow is a Singa-
pore-based free lance corres-
pondent.
Copyright, Pacific News Service,
1974.

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Next time you :see
someone polluting,
poin it out.
It's a spewing smokestack. It's litter
in the str'eets. It's a river- where fish
can't live.
You know what pollution is.
But not everyone does.
So the next time you see pollution,
don't close your eyes to it.
Wiite a letter. Make a call. Point it
outtto someone who ca do sontething
about it.
People start pollution. People can stop it.
Keep America Beautiful
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