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

To: ItsAllCyclical who wrote (56284)	12/7/1999 12:27:00 PM
From: Winkman777	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95453

Oil - LT opinion The most important issues during the early years of the new century will turn on energy, particular the depletion of fossil fuel resources, according the latest issue of Stephen Leeb of Person Finance. The recent spike in oil to over $25 a barrel shatters any illustration that the West has any control over the price of a commodity that's vital to its economy. That control is firmly in the hands of OPEC. And OPEC's biggest challenge will be to keep oil prices from rising too sharply. Within the next year or so the cartel shouldn't have much of a problem accomplishing that. But after 2001, even OPEC will be hard pressed to keep the uptrend in oil orderly, Our prediction is that the cartel will opt to keep oil in a moderate uptrend to sustain worldwide growth, keep their coffers brimming and encourage conversation efforts to take hold. Even OPEC realizes that without some measure of conservation, rising oil price will become uncontrollable sooner rather than later. You can protect yourself by holding a basket of energy companies and companies that build conservation products. The energy boom will rival techs' decade long rally. The case for oil is simple and compelling. Oil prices are going up today because inventories are being drawn down by increased demand, especially from the reinvigorated Asian economies. The only meaningful excess oil capacity in the world is in the hands of OPEC and that amounts to about 5 million barrels a day. Continued growth will use up that capacity by the end of 2001 at the latest. And if someone tells you technology will help us find more oil, look at our country. Oil production in the U.S. has been declining for more than a generation. The North Slope Oil Production has gone down from a peak of 2.0 mbd to 999,000 million barrels per day recently. The only way to sustain growth is through conservation or alternative development. Up to now the world has managed to conserve energy by slowing down economic growth and slower growth isn't acceptable. Nor are there any meaningful alternatives at hand. And even if there is a crash program to develop alternatives to fossil fuel it would take more than a decade to get them ready for the marketplace. Granted, natural gas is cleaner than oil and it offers some hope as an alternative. But it's hardly enough to halt the sharp uptrend in energy prices. We'll be desperate to find all the oil there is to find, desperate to conserve energy and desperate to develop our gas reserves. The best hope for finding additional oil deposits is with deep water drilling. Five companies control 80% of the deep water market. Stephen Leeb picks DO.