Oil prices to rise, but no need to panic

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 1

Oil prices to rise, but no need to panic

Striking Iranian oil workers will make sure that New Zealanders pay higher petrol prices early next year. The oil companies’ plan to stockpile oil to put oft' the expected price rises in the New Year have been thwarted by the eight-day strike, the Press Association reports from Wellington.

Half Neu' Zealand's crude oil imports come from Iran, but the Ministry of Energy and the big oil firms say there is no need to panic. About tw’o months supply is in reserve and the companies will ouickly turn to other suppliers if the politically motivated strike drags on.

Production has been halved and the Shah of Iran has ordered troops to protect installations. But port pilots at Kharg Island, in the Persian Gulf, also are on strike, effectively

stopping all shipping movements.

Forty tankers are delayed at the port. A spokesman for Shell. Mobil, and BP said there were no immediate plans to find alternative suppliers for New Zealand. "We were all hoping to get as much crude oil in before the year ended.” one spokesman said. Ministers of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil price fixing cartel, will meet next month and are expected to put prices up by at least 10 per cent.

The strikers demand an end to martial law, which the Shah imposed in an attempt to regain control as a wave of protest against his Government sweeps the country.

Iranian Government arrests former secret-police chief, Page 8.