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Show March 16. 1970 OIL&GAS JOURNAL jfa,*- ^_> ^fV • I (^wdmb PURUSHID WITKLY WATCHING THE WORLD with F R A N K J. G A R D N E R Conversation with an "oillionaire" " T H E O N L Y THING the Arabs have is oil and sand, and the only reason the oil is of any value is because the West wants to buy it. W e can't use the sand." That's the word from one of the world's leading authorities on things Arabian. And the statement certainly strips the Middle East muddle to its bare bones. Only Wendell Phillips, probably, could repeat it to an Arab face-to-face and come away, with a new contract in his hand. This remarkable man, who has spent most of his adult life traipsing across the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, has a great respect for the Arab earthling and is familiar with his failings as he is with his strengths. The key to good relations between the West and the Arabs, Phillips says, is to recognize the Arab as master of his own house. "They want to be our friends," he says, "and they have no use for communism." The growing Russian influence in the Middle East he attributes "more to the demerits of the West than to the merits of the Soviets themselves." Communist ideology, he emphasizes, is the antithesis of the Arab's spiritual heritage. YET THE DANGER EXISTS that communism could come to the Middle East. Phillips points to events in South Yemen as an example. He feels that country is already under communist control. Phillips, just returned from Indonesia, cites that nation as a case in point where spiritual heritage overcame the communist threat. "They saw the threat," he says, "and threw it off with no outside help." At the heart of it all, Phillips feels, was Indonesia's Moslem patrimony. Wendell Phillips' knowledge of the Moslem world did him no harm during his Indonesian visit. H e came away with a production-sharing contract covering 12,355 sq miles along the northern shore of West Irian. "I believe Indonesia, and all of Southeast Asia, will be one of the busiest and most-productive oil areas in the world over the next 10 years," Phillips says. While he is best known as an explorer and archeologist, he's also a geologist and a professor at the University of Wyoming. Nobody, including himself, knows just how much Phillips is worth, but he doesn't flinch when you say $500 million. "I don't worry about money," he says. "When I need some, I call my office and they send me some." H e recently organized his own oil company for the first time. Previously, he simply operated out of his suitcase. "Now we'll have the Wendell Phillips Oil Co. to handle the Indonesian and other ventures," he says. With royalty interests in VA million b/d of production on oil-permit holdings of 100 million acres, we'd say it's about time. |