Business Notes ENERGY

For oil-producing countries, a spring flood of crude can be devastating. The last one, in 1986, sent prices plunging below $10 a bbl. This year another glut is surging forth, depressing prices of Persian Gulf crude from $18 a bbl. in December to about $13 currently. The causes: a warm winter in Europe and an increase in production among non-OPEC countries, ranging from Angola to Yemen.

But even those maverick producers seem ready to consider tightening their spigots. Last week in London, petroleum experts from non-OPEC countries met in an emergency session to discuss ways to mop up the glut. But OPEC is unlikely to follow suit. Saudi Arabia's Hisham Nazer and other oil ministers seem hesitant to discuss cutbacks, since some OPEC members flout existing quotas.

Despite the global oil glut, the U.S. could face a long-term domestic shortage. Last week it was disclosed that the U.S. Geological Survey has lowered by 40% its estimates of oil and natural gas that remain to be found in the U.S. The survey, criticized by some experts as too pessimistic, puts undiscovered crude-oil deposits at about 33 billion bbl. That figure does not include undiscovered oil under federal offshore sites, which has been estimated at 12 billion bbl. The undiscovered resources, if taken together with proved U.S. reserves of 27 billion bbl., is only enough to last an estimated 20 years at current production levels. The supply may expand, however, as new ways of finding and extracting oil are developed.