IPAA's Independents.(Independent Petroleum Association of America)

Independent petroleum producers say they are suffering as a result of continuing low oil prices.

"We are an industry under siege," said Gil Thurm, president of Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), at the organization's annual meeting in New Orleans early this month. "We are facing a very serious price crisis."

Thurm assured independents that IPAA would work to get a marginal well tax credit passed in 1999, although he acknowledged that a number of hurdles remain, among them the requirement that any federal tax cut must be tied to offsetting revenues.

Collectively, these wells account for 1.3 million b/d of oil production in the U.S., a quantity equivalent to U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia, said Thurm.

"We're not asking for a bailout, we're asking just for what's due us. And we don't need the government trying to dump oil onto the market by selling oil out of the strategic petroleum reserve. We need to get some reality focus in Washington."

Another …