France: 14 p.c. oil cut

Press, 22 June 1979, Page 5

France: 14 p.c. oil cut

NZPA-Reuter Paris France has unveiled plans to reduce its oil imports by almost 14 per cent over the next six years setting an example in energy saving to its partners in Europe and the industrialised world as they prepared for crucial summit talks on the energy crisis.

President Valery Giscard d’Estaing will submit his plan today to the European summit meeting in Strasbourg and hopes it will encourage the emergence of a common energy policy. This would then be" presented to the leaders of the world’s seven largest industrialised states when they meet in

Tokyo on June 28-29, he has told the Cabinet. “The future of our economies is at stake,” he told Frenchmen in a televised interview. “It is a situation in which none of us can win alone and where we all stand to lose together.” The French plan envisages cutting oil consumption, by 8.5 M tonnes by the end of next year through a series of conservation measures mainly dependent on cutbacks in fuel for transport and heating. But petrol rationing is not planned because President Giscard and his Government consider, the car is for a Frenchman “a social con-

quest with a sense of greater freedom which they should not be deprived of.”

In Bahrain, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister (Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani) has been quoted as saying his country will do all it can to bring about a unified Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries scale of oil prices. “We might even reconsider our oil prices and output plan but we shall not agree to the current very high prices being charged,” Sheikh Yamani said in an interview with the newspaper, “Al Madina,” according to the official Saudi Press Agency. OP.E.C. will meet next week to consider another oil-price rise.