LETTERS: Mid-August best time for walkout To The Daily: now, as well as in the Fall - page and be effective anytime. would be a more desirable time. the staff is out of work the bet- WHEN THE wheels began to the time, day, or month maxes Why not get it togerber and It seems simple-minded to me ter. University immobility would turn and University clericals no difference. strike when all or the majority to put an implicit faith in a be greatest without secretaries realized they must get it to- On the other hand, there are of the units can have an effect? bargaining committee when: 1) in September and hence, a set- gether and unionize in order to those who will strike in the Fall, NO ONE says we have to wait they have not yet proven them- tlement would be a saort-time get fair treatment by the U5 of but not now. Taking this into until September 2 when things selves a worthy bargaining coming with staff out of work M, who ever thought we would consideration, the timing of tne are in full swing. Why not mid- agency; and 2) if they advocate for a lesser period. have to take a stand against strike will also determine its August, when everyonu's get- a strike in two weeks I ques- If the union has reasons be- the labor unit and bargaining strength and effectiveness. It ting ready for the Fall rush? tion their bargaining ability hind the let's-strike-in-two-weeks committee which we elected was clearly pointed out in our Also, by setting a strike date in when there appears to he evi- idea, they have to come up with to represent us as well? It ap- meeting Wednesday how many mid-August, the UAW v.il have deuce that a strike in Sterm- some good reasons for it. I pears that they do not realize more units will be affected by a little more leeway in gettiitg her would be by far the more haven't heard any from them that the strength of support waiting. a contract signed by the Sep- advantageous time both in terms yet. When no one knows the hinoes on timing of the strike. Face it - Accounting, pay- tember due-date (one year in of impact on the university and real state of the university, this Those who are really strong roll, Cashiers Office, and the which to have a signed c o n- in terms of finances. cloud of secrecy (or is it disor- supporters of striking will strike Hospital can cause a worn stop- tract) before voting take. pnlac Fall is- the time whei pro- ganization?) obscures issues t The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Tuesday, June 17, 1975 News Phone: 764-0552 PETRO-BIGWIGS GET COLD FEET ai over again as to whether we want a union to repretent us, as well as which one. It appears to me that this is the major rea- son for the big push to strike now rather than wait. Let's compromise-vote mid-Augue! l -Name withheld by request June 15 To The Daily: IN FRIDAY'S Daily there was a letter printed which advocated a clerical strike in two weeks. If we are going to strike it seems to me that September fessors organize their courses into final form and prepare an incredible amount of handouts for students. Secretaries are sa depended upon for this paper-, work that the absence of their assistance at this time t o u 1d cripple the functioning of most departments. The shockwave produced by a shutdown then would lead the universita to the bargaining table much more quickly than a summer strike would, when professors are not nearly as dependent o secre- taries. FINANCIALLY the les time more. When it is difficult to judge the odds of specific gains through the union anyway. the lack of facts that we coull be getting doesn't help. An appe l only to emotional- ism is not what we need, but some facts. Since the union is being as bad as many think the university is in hiding what gees on, I have the feeling that none of us are really in coitto! of the situation, and the union has taken on an entity of its own. -Mary Lucas Secretary June 13 Gulf of By KWON-PING HO SINGAPORE - Nobody is beating down the doors of the Thai oil industry this year. The gulf of Thailand's poten- tially rich offshore oil areas - formerly the scene of 1 a r g e scale exploration and drilling - are now quiet. In fact, four of the seven oil companies which sought and won oil con- cessions just two years ago are now inactive. Overall drilling plans for 1975 have been cut in half, as the oil companies find themselves plagued by a year of inflation- ary cIsts, a restrictive U.S. tax bill, and a host of uncertainties in the Thai political scene. In 1973 Union Oil's much pub- licized discovery of oil depos- its in the Gulf fueled a flurry of drilling activity. With t h e energy crisis as a further spur, oil companies embarked on am- bitious and optimistic drilling programs in 19 concession areas. Saman Buravas, Direc- tor General of Thailand's Min- eral Resources Department - which oversees petroleum ex- ploration - predicted that by 1977, "oil and gas will be coin- mercially produced." With an oil import bill of $600 million in 1974, an increase of 160 per cent over 1973, Thai- land has been anxious to be self-sufficient in oil, and gave the oil companies a go-ahead which was much more advan- tageous to the companies than many ther deals they had made with Asian governments. IN NOVEMBER 1974, how- ever, Saman announced -ha: it would take until 1977 just to know if oil could be commer- cially produced. By May 1975, his deouty refised even to sug- gest a date, saying "we don't know when the Gulf will be commercially productive" --the reason being that "eve 3 if a well is geologically attractive, it may not receive the neces- sarv f-nds for level pmen. ' The lack of funds has forced oil companies to cancel plans bevond the obligatory sei-sic surveys and minimum wells specifiedin their ongnal con- tracts. But outside from econ- omic ills - which affect drilling operations everywhere -- poli- Thailand oil boom on the skids tics is the primary rea "treading water" in t rather than drilling. "When Pan Am c Bangkok because of monstrations at the U. bassy, an oil executive "you can imagine what vestment climate has b Prominent Thai indus on the other hand, appe confident. "If I was worried ab Domino Theory or other nonsense," asked K. Y Managing Director of t Oil Refinery Co., the o4 largest refinery, "would decided to invest $100 for a lubricating oilp days before the gener tions?" "But the impet nationalism, like sure for withdrav U.S. military f would most like/ originate with the ernment." NEVERTHELESS, it i that the. domino jitters play the major role in fears. David Lyman, P of the American Chat Commerce, figures onl per cent chance of exte gression" - and attri shaky business confid domestic politics. For companies, domestic translates into a fear of alization of expropriatio. The TEMCO (Thai I tion & Mining Company) versy early this year hid the issue of who should son for , national resources, and whether he Gulf mining concessions granted dur- ing the corrupt Thano-n-Prap- overtlies has regime (overthrown in the de- 1973) - if found to b4 detri- S. Em- mental to national interests - said, should be unilaterally cancelled. the in- TEMCO, a tin mining j o i n t ecome." venture by the Thai Gtvern- trialists, ment, Union Carbide and a sub- ar to be sidiary of Shell Oil, was accus- ed by critics of exploitative practices. Pressure was pt on out t h e the government to restrict all fs c h mineral prospecting to 100 per . Chow, cent Thai-owned companies and he Thai to expropriate one TEMCO con- *intry's cession without compensation'. II have million BUT THE impetus for nntion- al til 14 alization, like pressure ftw with- al elec- drawal of U.S. military forces, would most likely not origiate from the government itself. If popular sentiment toward.s fore- siiitiii ign investment takes a hostile turn, fears of "gentle retalia- tion" would not be able Ia pre- us for vent the Thai government 'from succumbing to nationalist pres- sures. Some forward-looking cl ex- Mal of ecutives are in fact hopsn that a Thai national oil companv will soon be formed. According to orces, them, it is only a matter of time before the Thais organize y not their petroleum industry l i k e other Asian nations. e goY- The drop-off in drilling 'aciv- ity is not wholly due to politi- cal instabilities however. As worldwide consumption of pe- troleum has decreased, the ur- ur- gency of finding new fields has dissolved in a glut of surplus oil. And with the casts of dril- is t r u e ling a well almost doubling in do not the past year to $344 million, business continued -exploration has be- resident come prohibitively expensive. .ber of Finally, when the chance of y a "2 striking oil diminishes, the en- real ag- tire venture becomes unattrac- utes the tively high-risk. etce to "IT WAS only last year," said the o il Dr. C. Y. ei, a petroleum ex- po°tics pert, "that we realized the Gulf f natn was not as geologically prom- ising as we had all thought." . The tertiary formation of t h e Explora- earth's crust, the most likely ohm- source of oil, has been found to be thin and unpromising in the hlighted Gulf, and oil companies are re- I exploit luctant to invest the money for deeper drilling. In an attempt to keep oil exploration alive, 'only "pre-investment studies" are under way - in the hope that promising results may bring renewed drilling. The companies still drilling in the Gulf are Union, Sun, and Triton. Union is the only oper- ator with any enthusiasm about its finds, the other two a r e simply drilling obligatory wells. For the inactive companies, "treading water" has meant holding onto the concessions with a minimum of ependiture. According- to an informed oil executive, there is currently a behind-the-scenes flurry of ne- gotiations between .he inactive oil majors and small operators which bad never been able to bid for the original c)nces.sions. Every oil concessionaire is how either in partnership w'h other operators or looking for some- one. The desperate attempt to "farm out" interests in the con- cessions would enable original concessionaires to still retain control over their turfs b 'It pass the costs of drilling the ob. ligatory wells on to t'i; new partners. THE THAI government umean- while has tried to en I the it- certainty of oil pros"'ting in the Gi-If because of conflirting claims of the Thais, Catabsd- ians, and South Vietnamese there. Several years ago, a rig that the Cambodian govtrrnment allowed to drill in disputed wat- ers almost led to war wi'h the South Vietnamese, an oil com- panies that the Thais allowed to conduct seismic surve,s 5n the disputed areas have inc. bees denied permission. While there seems - 7 be no quick solution for the botudirv issue, several weeks ago t he Thai government told oil conm- panies to consider disputed areas as "supplemunlary con- cessions," not liable to the e't- piration dates covering t h e i r original contracts. TI.)c span- ies like Tenneca, -nau3 t wO blocks are 20 per cet and 26 per cent inside disputed areaS, this means more of a chane for exploration once the 'issae is amicably settled.