MARKET COOPERATION'S NEXT STEP

If the world's oil producers and consumers hope ever to fashion a formal system for cooperation, now is the time to try. Memories remain fresh of the Persian Gulf crisis and its effects on the petroleum market. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's sphere of mischief has shrunk. The notion has become prominent that oil prices have a comfort range, below and above which everyone suffers in time, and that cooperation might somehow keep prices out of the harmful extremes.