Predicamento Del Crudo

Traditionally, oil producers were able to find new oil faster than demand for oil grew. As a result, price busts would wipe out profits and investments -- followed by rises in demand and then booms. Producers thus sought to put a floor on prices by holding oil off the market. In addition, in order to limit competition and ensure healthy demand, they also sought to cap prices, adding extra oil to the market in tighter times. In the early 1930s, Washington, other Western governments, and international oil companies took control of supplies -- and prices. Blessed with massive low-cost resources, Texas played a pivotal role by holding as much as 25 percent of its production capacity in reserve. (Conventional wisdom has it that about five percent of global supplies provides a robust buffer against surprise developments in the market.) During the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, for example, the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the Texan oil industry, helped blunt the effects of an Arab oil embargo by drawing on its spare capacity. But in 1972, faced with surging demand in the United States, the chair of the commission was forced to order full production throughout the state. Thus, when the 1973 Arab-Israeli war triggered another Arab embargo, Texas, which was already operating at full tilt, was unable to produce more oil on short notice. Prices soared.

...