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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Ox who wrote (47713)	7/9/1999 10:22:00 PM
From: WWS	Respond to of 95453

Michael, based on the data presented in the DOE table linked in my earlier post, neither period of 4 years (1993 - 1996 or 1994 - 1997) indicates anything close to an increase of 8% in buring coal for electricity.

To: The Ox who wrote (47713)	7/10/1999 8:56:00 AM
From: SJS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Oil Producers Raise Goals - JULY 08, 00:19 EDT By DAVID KOENIG AP Business Writer DALLAS (AP) — Independent oil man Ted Collins says you can tell that oil prices are rising just by walking down the street in Midland, an oil town in West Texas. ''I see a better mood and a smile on a few people's faces,'' Collins said. In the past seven months, the price of oil has nearly doubled and is now flirting with $20 per barrel for the first time in 19 months. After a year of belt-tightening, consolidations and layoffs — 14,200 in Texas alone since May 1998, according to state labor officials — energy companies are beginning to spend more freely on exploration. But they are being cautious before reversing thousands of layoffs. Michael Mayer, an analyst with Schroder & Co., said many jobs lost due to mergers will never be replaced. The biggest mergers joined Exxon with Mobil and British Petroleum with Amoco. Smaller companies, such as Fort Worth-based Cross Timbers Oil Co. are increasing development budgets in light of the recovery in oil prices. Spending plans for the year were raised from $60 million to a range of $70 million to $90 million, said chief financial officer Louis Baldwin. ''We have an inventory of projects that go out three or four years. With improved prices, we're going to execute more of those than we had planned this year,'' Baldwin said. Enron Oil & Gas Co. in Houston said that if cash flow improves, its exploration spending will be at the higher end of its budget range of $575 million to $650 million. The industry giants, however, have not announced increases in spending. Exxon Corp., which increased its exploration spending from $8.8 billion to $10 billion last year, has said it will not increase spending this year. Crude oil has been trading at 19-month highs on the New York Mercantile Exchange and briefly shot above $20 a barrel on Tuesday. In trading Wednesday, the contract for August delivery of light, sweet crude oil was little changed, dipping 1 cent to close at $19.77 a barrel. Prices sank to a 12-year low in December 1998, dropping as far as $10.65 a barrel on the Nymex, as markets were awash with oil and demand was reduced because of economic crises spreading from Asia. The recovery in oil prices has come as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers adopted substantial cuts in output and apparently stuck to them, and as Asian economies began to recover. Texas oil producers remain skeptical about the recovery in prices after a prolonged slump. Many worry openly about the central role of OPEC, which until recently has failed to enforce oil-output limits on members. Exploration activity, meantime, remains far below levels of oil's heyday. The industry had a record 4,530 drilling rigs in use nationwide in December 1981. That plunged to an all-time low of 498 in April before recovering somewhat to 580 last week, according to Baker Hughes, which has been keeping count of active oil-drilling rigs since 1944. ''We're not seeing any new drilling yet, and that's where the jobs are,'' said Morris Burns, executive vice president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association in Midland. He said most activity this summer in West Texas has consisted of workovers — resuming production in old wells.