OPEC AND OIL PRICES

Izvestia Attacks West for Oil Price Decline

The Soviet Union has accused western countries and oil companies of engineering the current fall in oil prices in order to undermine OPEC, and warned that the result may in the end be an energy crisis more dangerous than those in 1973 and 1979.

A commentary in the government daily Izvestia on 11 February attributed the fall in prices to "widespread actions" by western countries as well as by the major oil companies,...