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

To: Webster Groves who wrote (51752)	9/23/1999 8:43:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 95453

From this weeks issue of Oil & Gas Journal: No one knows exactly how much space exists in the world in which to store oil. So no one knows exactly how much of that space contains oil at any one time. This became a popular controversy last year when reporting agencies deduced stock levels they couldn't actually measure. The theory developed that traders had undervalued oil supposing that more of it was on hand than actually was the case. Now that oil prices have rebounded no one seems to care. Suspicion lingers about the validity of stock figures nevertheless. For that reason, the Saudi suggestion for putting stocks at the center of OPEC decisions about production will go nowhere. Instead of heeding an imperfect but useful indicator of market dynamics, therefore, OPEC will stay riveted to price. It will base its decisions on the natural craving for revenue associated with one more dollar per barrel and worry about market contraction later. For everyone else in the oil industry, a little such worry now would make a prudent basis for planning.