The Oil Talker

The flyspeck country of Brunei, perched on the northwest coast of Borneo, is a place long on intrigue, corruption and scrapping. Besides these normal excitements, Brunei has another concern these days: the steadily declining crude production in its privately owned oilfields. Dependent on petroleum, Brunei's economy is wobbly and in need of more oil income than it is now getting. To arrange a transfusion, Brunei turned to a man whose well of oil knowledge made his choice natural--Walter James Levy, 51, a New York petroleum consultant.

Delicate Art. Last week in London, Levy sat in on talks between Brunei Shell Petroleum Co. Ltd. and the Brunei government designed to give Brunei a larger slice of revenue from private oil production (1962 daily output: 85,000 bbl.). Levy merely observed; by the time the delicate negotiations began, he had already given his client. His Highness Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin. "disinterested advice" about what he considered a fair price for both parties.

Levy's record in the delicate art of advising has been marked by steady successes. The son of a Hamburg lawyer, he lied Hitler's Germany in 1937 and landed a job on a petroleum publication in London. By feverish effort, he learned the tangled ramifications of world oil, emigrated to the U.S. in 1941. There, his talents won him a presidential citation for work as a wartime Government adviser. One achievement: pinpointing Nazi oil targets for the Air Force by tedious study of German railroad freight rate reductions. In postwar assignments he had a key role in charting U.S. oil policy, and opened his own one-man consulting service in 1949. His counsel has been sought by almost all major U.S. oil companies, including Caltex, Sinclair. Atlantic Refining and Socony, as well as by foreign firms and rulers.

Take It or Leave It. To walk the tight rope between private enterprise and government--and keep both happy--requires a delicate sense of balance. Levy has it. Speaking with an arresting German-Oxford accent, he can be as blunt in personal conversation as he is careful when it comes to delivering voluminous written reports for a potentate or an oil magnate. His ability to steer a middle course through the troubled waters of oil disputes has landed him as consultant in such hot spots as Suez and Iran. In 1959, he met privately with India's Prime Minister Nehru, tried to prevent him from being too ambitious in exploring for petroleum with Indian money. Said Levy: "For every oil well you drill. 1,000 Indians will have to go without an education. Your resources are inadequate to do everything you want. So let foreign interests do the drilling.'' Levy's advice helped to temper Indian policy.

Roaming out of his small Manhattan office to executive suites in London and Brussels or to the oilfields of Asia and the Middle East, Levy has become a friend of sultans, shahs, sheiks and top oil executives, bringing a broad perspective to an often parochial industry. Of the intricate area in which he operates, Levy says: "I write what I think is fair to both sides in a negotiation. And I only give advice on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.'' Of ten people with big oil problems, like the Sultan of Brunei, take it.

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