Look up: Petrodollar

1. Petrodollar
   Refers to the profits made by oil exporting countries when the price rose during the 1970s, and their preference for holding these profits in U.S. dollar-denominated assets, either in the U.S. or in Europe as Eurodollars. A portion of these were in turn lent by banks to oil-importing developing countries that used them to buy oil.
   Found on http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/
   
   
2. Petrodollar
   A `petrodollar` is a United States dollar earned by a country through the sale of petroleum. The term was coined by Ibrahim Oweiss, a professor of economics at Georgetown University, in 1973. Oweiss felt there was a need for a word to describe the situation then occurring in oil producing, OPEC coun...
   Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar