Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 7, 1979, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free focus soviet has All that Oil too White american Energy experts spec ulate frantically about saudi arabian production hardly anyone has noticed what is happening in the worlds biggest Oil producing country the Samot Lor Field in Siberia provided a Quarter of russian impressive in crease in Oil output Between 1973 and but production now seems to have at just under 3 million barrels a from now the Fields output will be or this does not mean that Russia is running out of but it highlights Eastern Europe pressing Energy problems almost As vividly As most of the regions drastic cutbacks in fuel and electricity supplies this past in the soviet Union pumped out crude at the rate of million barrels barrels a roughly 19 of world and a third As much again As the worlds next biggest pro the United russian proven reserves Are estimated by Western oilmen at 71 billion barrels their guess for total recoverable reserves is a Fig ure some five times but most of the reserves remaining to be identified and proved up lie far away from the main population centres some in the extreme climatic conditions of the russian russian Energy ministers Are publicly optimistic about future Progress in striking contrast to the pessimism of Western the prevailing Western View is that russian optimism about resources is not misplaced but that the costs and time lags associated with the develop ment of these Remote and difficult oilfields May Well prove the russians realize that they have a big task on their which is one reason Why they Are now stepping up rapidly their output of natural big Export future at the the soviet Union produces natural Gas at Only half the rate of the United though it has proven natural Gas reserves which add up to 30 of the worlds but by Russia Hopes to have enough natural Gas to spare to Export to East Ern Europe just Over 30 billion cubic metres of Gas about a third of the regions needs and to Western Europe and Yugoslavia at least 25 billion cubic metres about 10 or by the some Western estimates suggest that it might Well be Given adequate to double rus Sias annual output to about 900 billion cubic in the Koznetski Region of Southern Russia has huge reserves of High Grade bituminous Coal present annual 150 million the 1980s will see Russia beginning to exploit its Large Lignite Brown Coal reserves in the Kanska Chinsk also in Southern proved Coal at nearly 280 billion Are the biggest in the probable reserves can be guessed at Over 5 trillion two thirds of it one third Lig but Little or nothing is known about Many of the great siberian Coal which the Industry will not Start to tap until the turn of the Cen this sounds like a recipe for bound less but the rest of Eastern Europe is an Energy Only 3 of come cons Energy resources Are in Eastern Europe the rest Are in the soviet Eastern Europe has less than of total world Oil most of that Oil is in As is some 40 of Eastern Europe tiny Nat ural Gas Coal for 150 years there is 150 years Worth of Coal reserves in Eastern Europe at current Supply but most of it except in Poland is Brown Coal and with Low heat up to about 70 of primary Energy consumed in Eastern Europe excluding Russia came from the East europeans had no Choice the russians did not encourage them to go shopping for cheap Oil in world markets because this might have increased their economic Independence from to soviet Oil first became available for Export in Quantity in the late Between 1970 and East european Energy imports mostly Oil from rus Sia Rose from 11 to 17 of the areas total Energy in the same the East europeans were Busy switching away from Coal into Oil and this made Good economic sense for could at the time buy twice As much Energy per Dollar in the form of Oil As it could in the form Between 1971 and 1975 Coal product Ion in Eastern Europe grew Only at a year compared with an annual growth rate of imported Energy of most of the increase came from hard Coal in Poland but a Quarter of its Coal production is production actually fell in East Germany and the soviet unions proved Coal at nearly 280 billion Are the biggest in the world expansion was slowed the open Oil Price rises of 1973 and 1974 gave russian planners a Good hard currency reason for slowing the growth in Oil exports to Eastern Europe it might have wanted to Check exports because of the slowdown in capacity some 90 of the future sources of russian Oil lies in the inhospitable regions East of the so does most of soviet natural Gas and but almost four fifths of soviet Energy today is consumed in the european part of the soviet Union including the urals and the the Cost of developing these Remote sources is compounded by the Lack of housing and other according to soviet to get an additional roubles Worth of output in the mining and extractive industries you need to invest three roubles today a capita output ratio at least 50 higher than a decade these Indus tries output Rose a year in 197175 Only a year in 1976 and and last years Oil million was Only some higher than that in but the Cias forecast that the soviet Oil Industry will fail to reach the minimum target production figure of million in 1980 looks too so the Cias other predictions that soviet output will Peak at million and will drop to 10 million by 1985 also now seem but the trends that the Cia described Are clearly and the engineering Only Price can soothe Oil panic there Are lots of ways of helping to keep Oil prices avoiding panic is one and its not enough Oil consuming countries have learn Edone lesson from the petrol shortages in California the Power of after watching the typical californian Driver boost the contents of his tank from an average of 3 us Gallons to around 13 emptying filling stations and refinery storage with dizzying they Are trying at All costs to Calm everybody expectations play a powerful role in creating and sustaining any commodity Price the Price expectations of a few powerful men in the open Oil producing countries Are now self fulfil not for them the sort of straight Forward Supply ceilings and Price fix ing that the average rubber tycoon or Texas oilman would once have called orderly open has Stum bled partly by partly by conscious decision of the saudi Royal Fame partly because of the revolution in Iran into a position in which Supply has become constrained by the general expectation is that supplies Are going to be tight for the foreseeable and that prices Are going to be Oil companies and Consumers alike turn this expectation into an attempt to hold on to stocks at All whatever the and open can bump up prices at will because Oil companies have to bid for marginal amounts of Oil in a tiny Market distorted by the desperate need of two coun tries Israel and South Africa unable to buy Oil anywhere else at any damping it Down crisis packages in the West might just Damp Down such but the if particularly in Oil hog would be to sock demand for Oil products by the oldest method known in the Book though crude Oil prices Are North americas gasoline consumer has yet to be made to pick up the James the Energy is annoyed at the europeans for allowing High product which he says suck Oil away from but he has done his european col leagues no service by imposing heat Inghil Stock holding requirements that if give America higher stocks this autumn than it had this order effectively pushes the Oil companies on to the Rotterdam Market to mop up whatever going for current this move touched off the latest Rotterdam leap and the latest spiral of Price which took iranian crude up to and algerian up to governments at All avoid swelling the ranks of spot Market customers in this Schlesinger seems to be thinking twice about his heating Oil Stock rules europeans could reciprocate by telling Oil companies to keep out of the spot Market As far As As America told its firms to do until a month and surely it is not beyond some secret services wit to find some Way of get Ting embargo free Oil to South Africa and to keep them from pushing everybody prices up if the West is to bring the Oil Price spiral to an it will have to make it Worth specs while to re consolidate its prices into a fixed and slowly mov ing which does not merely respond to the latest Hiccough from and dont just Bash the Rotterdam Market with As France has been the mar Ket would simply pop up Price fixing meetings other measures to try open has sought constructive Western help since 1973 the Transfer of the Protection of the real value of overseas combined Aid operations to the this can be in murmurs and even open the aim must be to try to get Back starting in Geneva in june to regular open Price fixing meetings in which the full implications of every Price move get the 5 Oil conservation which is going so lamentably needs a wholesale revision in pretty Well every consuming country that now subscribes to there Are lots of tween now and next of re jigging electricity tariffs and patterns of demand in ways which will reduce the pressure on Oil time is precious time for the next recession and the next new oilfield to recreate the margin of spare capacity that pushed Oil prices Down in real terms Between 1975 and the West threw that advantage it must not do so next the economist Effort required to bring new production on Stream fast enough to offset them May Well be beyond the reach of the soviet Oil russian Coal Outlook a lot clearer but in some ways equally depress in the three years Coal output fell badly behind the Gap is estimated by the politically even handed United nations economic commission for Europe at the equivalent of of crude Only natural Gas remains a Bright in production Rose by though the planned increase was Only this year output of natural Gas is planned to Rise by another but de Mand will be growing none of this will ensure an end to Eastern Europe chronic Energy which during the very Winter reached damaging in bad weather in Jan uary and february which froze Coal hampered transport and in creased demand meant that the electricity Industry was Short of the equivalent of one 400mw Power station running schools were closed for almost the whole of factories were Street lighting was reduced and television programs Cut Back to three hours a East Germany had to import Coal from the Poland declared wordless Satur Days to save electricity has always played a mythical role in communist economic Lenin said communism is soviet Power plus the Central Power feeding its cur rent out into the dispersed factories of a town or Region provided a perfect metaphor for centralised economic and the nuclear Power Sta which added the mystique of the most up Odate a metaphor for socialist and nuclear Powers tendency to stir up Environ mental controversies can be More easily overcome in a closed so where information is controlled and dissent for the soviet nuclear Power can plug the Energy Gap in its Deve loped Western for Eastern nuclear Energy is perhaps the Only Way of avoiding a serious Energy constrained slowdown in economic growth in the 1980s and so while the West debates whether to pursue its nuclear Power Russia and its com econ partners Are pressing ahead with theirs though Russia seems determined to keep As much of the Region s nuclear capacity As Possi ble on its own an agreement for the joint financing of a nuclear Power station to be built in Khmelnitsky in the Ukraine was signed in Moscow on March 28th the Day of the Harrisburg incident by Poland and the soviet this Plant Cost billion is the first of two which will provide extra electricity for Eastern Europe via the new 750kv Power Grid also a joint com econ project whose first linking Vinnitsa in the Ukraine and Albe Tirsa in came into operation at the end of the second also agreed in Moscow is to link the new Power station in Khmelnitsky with Rzeszot in Southeastern Poland close to the soviet a link with Yugoslavia and Western Europe is also nuclear Power expansion by 1980 come cons total installed nuclear Power capacity is expected to be nuclear stations will account for of total electricity against in Russia already has 19 nuclear Power Sta with a total capacity of a further 20 More Are already nuclear Energy role in satisfying soviet electricity needs is still Small 2 or so in 1980 compared with 15 in America last but it is planned to grow quickly to 10 in 1990 and 20 in the year in nuclear Powers share will reach 12 in 1980 planners 42 in the High est planned share in in re mania and Bulgaria it is expected to reach 20 by East Germany has four nuclear Power stations bul Garia has two Czechoslovakia first commercial one came on Stream last rumanian first will be a Canadian reactor backed by a billion Canadian credit agreed on april 30th to be commissioned some time in the Hungary first reactor will be finished in Poland in the economist tasteless titillation or sour gripes 9 theres a Little publicized event that takes place in Winnipeg every year and its called Beer and its an Early Spring Stag and it draws hundreds of prominent Manitoban Cabinet judges and company its one of those hoary old 45year traditions and its for boys they gather in some convention Centre or ballroom and get their jollies by sitting around Swilling listening to dirty Little satirical swapping snickering at sexist in indulging in All the delights of the perpetual its with great shame that i admit this event is staged by members of my own the Winnipeg press put out in conjunction with the Beer and skits night is a Seemy rag that equally lacking in to even Call it a Magazine is to Grace among the contributors to this liter Ary trash Are some of Winnipeg top journalists and Prall of the typesetting was done by the Winnipeg free Alice Krueger like other it contains some of them Are paid for by such Fine upstanding corporate citizens As the Bay and in the Case of Here is the store which to this Day Doest sell cigarettes because smoking is sinful if Timothy were alive to see this and in addition to the an Eaton employee posed for the nude other advertisers include great West greater Winnipeg Gas Mckeag Blackwood Bever Century 21 and Matthon its Worth noting the free press also took out an and of a full clothed Man Csc Host John another full Page and is sponsored by Premier Sterling Lyon and the progressive conservative party of although not sexist or Offen sively the tory and by its very presence lends support to the Beer and skits its a pity some of the ads cant be published so the general Public and women in particular could see the Depths to which some people will sink just to get a it might even change some Peoples minds about where they want to shop in most of the ads cant be published because there sexist and totally a subcommittee of the Manitoba action committee on the status of women got hold of the Beer and skits rag and issued a press release this deploring such sexism and expressing disappointment that women Are still regarded As sex objects by Many members of the news the action committee had a great idea it suggested the ads be posted on company bulletin boards so their female employees could see How their company portrays women to an All male it also suggested the businesses be called to see How they justify the con tent of their heres How three of them responded the Bays advertising manager Bruce Knowles declined he said he was not at Liberty to make any statement on behalf of the company and referred the caller to the sales promotion Knowles express the Hope that the matter would not cause such a fuss As to necessitate the Bay withdrawing its advertising from the Winnipeg free told that such a threat would have no bearing whatsoever on what was to be written in this the and Man said he was Only Eaton advertising manager John constant said he see anything wrong with his company he Felt it was in keeping with the whole spirit of Beer and anything we do As a company has to be in Good taste and looking at the 1979 Issue of the i dont think theres anything in bad he he described the Stag As a private affair of kind of entertainment and the and was in keeping with that it was done in Good Faith and was geared for a private club with a select audience and limited about 800 people attended the event this year and approximately copies of the rag were a spokesman for greatest communications manager Ron Gra Ham also made the distinction Between private and Public of course we would find it offensive if it were directed at our customers or at the general Graham admit pie press he is a private club and that makes it differ old traditions die but this is one that should have been put out of its misery decades i ;