Senate Oil Watch For Immediate Release: February 24, 1998 Contact: Wendy Lindskoog at (907) 4654582. Senate Majority Press Office at (907) 465-4582

Juneau -- During Tuesday’s Senate session, Senator Drue, Co-Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced that the joint Senate and House Revenue Summit will be held on Tuesday, March 10, 1998.

"We plan to focus primarily on oil prices. We will be inviting the governor and his representatives from the Department of Revenue and the Office of Management and Budget along with international forecasters to talk about oil prices and where the state is headed."

"For those of you who haven’t looked at the blackboard in the Senate Finance Room, yesterday’s closing oil price was $12.48 per barrel. That’s the lowest we’ve seen this year. The market is, of course, responding to the news of a proposed settlement of the Middle East crisis and the expectation that Iraq will not only continue producing oil, but the country may very well be producing more oil in just a few months."

"Please hold March 10 open to attend the Revenue Summit. We will attempt to figure out whether we are looking at a long term adjustment in commodity prices or whether the low oil prices is just a dip."

* * * * *

Senator Rick Halford followed Senator Pearce’s remarks with a question to the oil refiners. "Since the price of their raw material has been cut in half in the last year, and their product has only gone down five percent, when are we going to see the positive side of low oil prices?"

Broadcast Actualities at (800) 478-6540 or
= Drue Pearce, 113 K = Rick Halford, 20 K