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Show DISRUPTING THE OIL INDUSTRY The government's antitrust lawyers are determined to break up the big oil companies, regardless re-gardless of the damage that would be done to the economy and the public interest. That is about the only deduction deduc-tion that can be made from some charges that appear in the current cur-rent antitrust suit against seven major western oil companies. ' As an example, one charge says that the defendant companies compan-ies dominate a conservation committee which was set up by California oil producers of all kinds and sizes, and use this power to control production for the purpose of holding up prices. Actually, the committee in question is 100 per cent necessary neces-sary if precious oil is to be conserved. con-served. Oil usually is found in pools, and the wells of various operators draw from the same source. The manner of operation of one affects the supply available avail-able to all. The conservation committee is concerned with only that 20 per cent of the state's oil wells where the manner in which the oil Is produced has a bearing upon the total amount that can be recovered. recov-ered. The committee simply determines de-termines the kind of production that will assure the greatest eventual recovery of oil. To say that seven big com-J panies dominate the committee is absurd. Each member has one vote. The seven companies comprise com-prise only 22 per cent of the total membership. Other concerns con-cerns have the huge majority of 78 per cent. On top of that, the committee works on a purely voluntary basis. Nobody has to belong, and it has no enforcement enforce-ment powers of any kind. It can only recommend, and hope that sound conservation practices will be followed. This is but one example of how the antitrust lawyers seize on any straw in their effort to disorganize and break up our magnificent oil industry an industry in which both big companies com-panies and small companies perform per-form vital roles. |