OTHER NEWS - July 20, 1991

IRS Targets Mobil: Mobil Oil Corp. said the Internal Revenue Service wants to tax an extra $2 billion in income from sales it made years ago. An analyst said the taxes could total $800 million. To contain oil prices during the 1979 Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia asked the firms that once owned the Arabian American Oil Co.--Mobil, Exxon, Chevron and Texaco--to buy its crude at as much as $6 below the then-market price of $34 a barrel, and to pass that savings along to their affiliates. Mobil says the IRS claims that it should have charged the world market rate; by charging less, Mobil paid less U.S. tax than it would have owed. An IRS spokeswoman declined comment.