According to Gordon Moody's Global Energy Outlook, crude oil prices are expected to remain relatively stable during 1999. This is the result of a current oversupply of oil. The resulting low prices for crude oil translate into more consumer spending for non-oil products and better profits for industry which depends on oil energy. While the U.S. consumes about one-fourth of the world's oil, the U.S. oil reserves are only about 2.5 percent of the world's oil reserves. Experience teaches that you won't get a sympathetic hearing from either the Administration or Congress.
Cheap oil is seen as the one component that has kept the American economy from freefall.
A ten percent cut in oil production worldwide would restore oil prices at a level that would provide economic security to producers and consumers alike. It is utter folly to take a 50 percent cut in revenue to produce 10 percent excess capacity. Global Energy Outlook reports that the consensus of Time magazine's Board of Economists agree that the 1999 outlook for the global economy appears to be stabilized and that the Asian financial crisis appears to be contained. However, the world economy will not recover rapidly. It will be into the year 2000 or later that the economic damage can be repaired in some countries.