Page 360 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Masquerade 357

The shah pronounced his benediction upon the Tehran settlement from

Switzerland, where he had gone to ski. Whatever the Libyans and others might
gain from their negotiations with the companies, he declared grandly, he
himself would honour the new agreement. ‘Whatever happens, there will be no
leap-frogging.’ A more demonstrative reaction to the St Valentine’s Day
massacre of the Western oil companies was that of the irrepressible Jamshid
Amuzegar: ‘I was so happy I had tears in my eyes!’ And why not, indeed? After
all, the agreement would net Persia an additional $450 million in 1971 alone.
He and his royal master could now boast that the boardrooms of the inter­
national oil companies were, in the words of their celebrated fellow
countryman, Omar Khayyam, ‘the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank
deep’. As for the State Department, which throughout the whole inglorious

episode had been telling its beads and intoning supplications about ‘stability’,
‘orderliness’ and ‘durability’, it rushed to profess its faith in the Tehran
settlement with indecent haste and convenient myopia, owlishly opining that it
‘expected the previously turbulent international oil situation to calm down
following the new agreement’.
Predictably, the Libyan settlement resulted in much higher posted prices.
At first the Libyans refused to negotiate with the companies en bloc, and had a
series of separate meetings with representatives of the individual companies.
Threats and tantrums were the order of the day, most of them issuing from
Major Abdul Salem Jallud, the soi-disant ‘strong man’ of the regime. The other
Arab governments involved in the Mediterranean settlement backed the
Libyans, knowing that they themselves would profit from a high posted price
for Libyan oil. Algeria, which had worked hand-in-glove with the Libyans all

along and which was, as we shall see shortly, still embroiled it1 an acrimonious
contest with France over oil production and prices, joined with Iraq in
threatening the companies with embargoes and other dire haPPerunSs’ Nor
were the ‘moderate’ Saudis slow to throw out dark hints of
penalties if their Libyan ‘brothers’ were not satisfied. Event11 a 1 Yans
agreed to a combined negotiation. Several lengthy

0 owed, marked on the Libyan side by boorishness and h1 'pQwards the
r comPanies’ Part by misplaced civility and forbearah^eoWn inimitable
0 arch Colonel Qaddafi tried to hurry things along in h* Libya if they
way y threatening to nationalize the companies’ assets **^pt was agreed.
It USe Concede bis terms. At length, on 2 April, a settl^^^nts tip on the
gave the Libyans a posted price of $3.30 a barrel (77 T^miuAis which
pushed I<?7° Price °f $2’53)’ Plus freight and gravity ext,°teA fr°m
She ccmn $3 45 ■ a.total increase of 30 per cent on the p^ °n August

1970 nri aiUeS °n'y S*X mont*ls earlier, and 130 per cent . ■ ..
x97O prices. fo> their oil
Iraq and Saudi u u ■ , the X^aqis and
delivered at M Arabia both tried to get comparable

e terranean terminals. The exchanges bet^