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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Leah Industries, Inc. (OTC-BB-LEAH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andrew H who wrote (2057)	7/13/1999 4:10:00 AM
From: Kelton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2153

Some Interesting news yesterday from the Wall Street Journal regarding that Caspian pipeline which was a hot topic around here before the suspension news overwhelmed us. Roils U.S. Plan for Pipeline By BHUSHAN BAHREE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BP Amoco PLC announced a huge gas find in Azerbaijan, which has the potential to become a major exporter of natural gas to the fast-growing Turkish market. The find could upset U.S.-backed plans for a trans-Caspian pipeline from Turkmenistan. That BP Amoco had found gas in Shah Deniz, offshore from the Caspian Sea, became known recently. But the extent of the discovery became clear Monday when BP Amoco released test results and suggested setting up a joint working group with Azerbaijani authorities. Gas experts said the results showed Shah Deniz is a huge gas field, with reserves in excess of 400 billion cubic meters. The size of the discovery has great commercial potential. The obvious export destination is Turkey, the only market in the region that has the need for gas and the money to pay for it. Last year, Turkey used about 14 billion cubic meters of gas. Botas, Turkey's national gas company, has projected demand rising very rapidly to about 45 billion cubic meters by 2005. That's more than enough to whet the appetite of Russia's Gazprom, already Turkey's main supplier through a pipeline that runs along the eastern shore of the Black Sea; and of Turkmenistan, which has huge reserves of the fuel but hardly any outlets after a dispute with Russia ended its access to Gazprom's European pipeline network. Iran, which has the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia, contracted to supply Turkey with 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually over 20 years in a deal valued at $20 billion. U.S. officials have cautioned Azerbaijan against going it alone with an export gas line, which industry experts estimate could cost almost $2 billion to link Shah Deniz with Ankara, Turkey's capital. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan awarded the trans-Caspian gas-line project to PSG International, jointly owned by GE Capital Services, the finance unit of General Electric Co., and Bechtel Enterprises, a unit of Bechtel Group Inc. PSG, which intends to bring Turkmen gas to Turkey across the Caspian through a pipeline estimated to cost about $2.5 billion, is looking for other partners for the project. Gazprom has found a partner in Italy's energy company ENI SpA for its $3 billion project to run a north-south pipeline with a capacity of about 16 billion cubic meters under the Black Sea to Turkey. BP Amoco has a 25.5% stake in Shah Deniz and is the operator. Norway's state-owned Statoil ASA also has a 25.5% interest. Other members of the group include: Azerbaijan's state oil company Socar; France's Elf Aquitaine SA; LukAgip NV, a joint venture between Russia's Lukoil and the Agip unit of ENI; Oil Industries Engineering & Construction of Iran; and Turkish Petroleum Overseas Co. --Hugh Pope contributed to this article. ______________________________________________________________________ All this on the heels of Student Protests in Iran, protesting the Ansar Hizbollah, or as some of my Arab friends call them, the Ansar Hizbolsheytan. asia.yahoo.com