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

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (51412)	9/19/1999 9:30:00 PM
From: upanddown	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

John Q Based on terms used to describe FGI's backlog (hemorrhaging, needs triage, dramatically declining, shrinking drastically, declining rapidly)...not all from Slider incidentally... the correct answer is obvious.......ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!! I wouldn't assume the backlog would even last to the end of the month. FGIer's are probably sitting around all day shooting the breeze.<vbg> OTOH, there are some numbers to be dug out of 10-Q's. They paint a SLIGHTLY different picture. These are FGI backlog in millions. Dec 31,1997----324.6 Dec 31,1998----364.7 Mar 31,1999----407.0 Jun 30,1999----343.9 In the first six months of 1999, the backlog shrunk 20.8M or approx 5.7%. Revenues for that same period were 278.5M. The backlog shrinkage was approx 7.5% of revenues. We have heard that FGI is getting little new business and thats accurate as far as newbuilds are concerned but they must be getting some new business from some source. If 278.5M in goods goes out the back door and the backlog shrinks 20.8M, doesn't that imply that 257M in new orders came in the front door and that at the absolute nadir of the oil cycle? If people want to worry about shrinking backlogs, they might look closer at HLX. Their backlog shrunk 248M in the first six months of 1999 or 12 times FGI shrinkage. Its still higher than FGI at 535M but HLX might be the one more in need of newbuild contracts. Everyone see the FLC interview in an earlier post? They have 15 jack-ups coldstacked in the Gulf. When they are ready to re-commission them, the question to FLC is.....whoyagonnacall???<vbg> My guess --- 310M. John