ORDER OF SOCIALIST MOTHERHOOD

Last month we reported on a Texas oil well that had to shut down because its pump ran out of diesel oil. That was in the good old days when such things were merely a warning signal. By now, the entire booming search for "new" (price decontroled) oil has run out of steel pipe for casings. There are scores of reasons, but they all reduce to one: bureaucratic regulation of the market place.

The steel industry is subject to Phase IV profit limitations, and it naturally prefers to produce more high profit items, of which tubular goods are not one. But there are no price controls on exports, and whilst some drilling rigs are already shutting down for lack of casing, it is being exported abroad; 15% of it, yes, you guessed right, to the Arab countries. New oil wells are now being designed not for maximum efficiency, but for minimum casing requirements. And while oilmen are putting their pipe under armed guard, a Houston supplier sits on two million feet of oil well casing, which he cannot sell because of Phase IV regulations. After Oklahoma Sen. Bartlett managed to get a partial exemption from the Cost of Living Council, the firm was deluged by telephone calls, but the pipe is still unavailable, because more red tape prevents it being sold except at a loss.

The results of all this are predictable. There is now a black market in used well casing with prices up to 80% higher than new casing, which is unavailable. Casing is now being salvaged from old wells while the givernment is appealing to conserve energy. One man who will ignore these appeals is the sheriff in Odessa, Texas, who is using a helicopter to spot a new type of criminal from the air: the pipe rustlers.

It is next to impossible to determine which of the more than 60 government agencies mothering energy matters deserves the biggest blame for all this; but whichever one it is, we nominate it for the Order of Socialist Motherhood.