KUWAIT BYPASSES GULF AND BP IN MARKETING PLANS

The government of Kuwait, whose Parliament voted three weeks ago to take over 60 per cent of the giant Kuwait Oil Co. (INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE), May 27, has now dealt another blow to its two Western partners, Gulf Oil Corp. and British Petroleum. In a move intended to push its foreign competitors out of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait announced that it was taking immediate and forceful steps to bypass Gulf and BP---formerly the joint owners of Kuwait Oil---and market its share of oil directly by offering to sell its best customers 1,250,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Earlier, the two Western companies reportedly offered to "buy back" the Kuwait Government’ s Newsweek 10.6.74 share of production at $9.50 a barrel. But when Kuwait insisted on $10.74 a barrel, Gulf and BP broke off negotiations. If the oil is purchased directly from the government by Kuwait’ s traditional customers in Japan and Western Europe, many oil-industry experts predict that worldwide prices of crude will tend to level off at their present levels.