Desarrollo energético en América Latina y la economía mundial

DESARROLLO ENERGÉTICO EN AMÉRICA LATINA y LA ECONOMÍA MUNDIAL tiona1 sourees on noneonventional terms (barter and non dollar pay– ments), and the emergenee in producing eountries of oH experts who were able to question sorne of the operationa1 principIes and practices of oil companies. And the faet that by the¡: mid 1950s oil imports had become a significant eIement in the US market. The rising significanee of imported oíl 1ed the US government to impose and oil import quota system. Such a system had sorne impor– tant consequences such as the denial of opportunity to oil producing countries to expand output, especially Venezuela which had become dependent on US oil needs; and the running down of US oil reserves. One of the most important ramifications of the US import control system to the international oi! industry was its impact on the behavior of the newcomers. These oi1 firms entered the world market in the 19505 in order to insure erude supplies primarily for their own refin– eries in the USo Once the US market was closed in 1959, it was only logical that they would seU their low cost crude at Iess than the majors' posted prices. Although the market outside the majors' control was narrow, it was wide enough to exert a downward pressure on world prices outside the USo This and the re-entry of Soviet oil, forced the majors to seU their own oi! to non·affiliates at a discount in order to protect their market share and to expand them if possiJ:.le. But to seU at less than the posted prices and compute government revenue at . the posted prices meant that the majors were forced to accept less than 50% of the profits. From the majors' point of view the situation was unacceptable. Thus the majon.announced in February, 1959, a reduc. tion of 18e/barred in the posted prices of Middle East crudes (from $ 2.08 for Arabian oil folIowed by another reduction of lOe/barre! in August, 1960 (from $ 1.90 for the same oil). These reductions had the effect of reducing the per barrel revenue for Arabian oil from 82c to 75c or by 9%. The governments of producing countries could not tolerate such a situation in which a foreign enterprise would unilate– rally determine the size of their revenue. These ,arbitrary price cuts served as a warning to the oil producing countries that in the absence of cooperation among themselves, further reductions in the posted prices might take place, hence endangering their current budgets and development programs. Prices and Profits Before OPEC Posted prices (prices published by oil companies at a seaboard termi. nal) became, with the .adoption in the early 1950s of the profit sharing 30