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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canadian Oil & Gas Companies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jon Matz who wrote (9061)	5/2/2002 10:13:35 AM
From: Big Shorty	Respond to of 24910

Jon, I have been in RGW for a while. I got in at the advice of a close friend who is involved in specialty gasses. I am quite happy with it but I can't tell you much about it. I would suspect that the recent change in price has something to do with the helium project. Jim

To: Jon Matz who wrote (9061)	5/2/2002 12:19:11 PM
From: The Osprey	Respond to of 24910

Wait and see if Richard Saunders or Stanley mentions it and if they do then it is OK from what I have seen here. The Osprey

To: Jon Matz who wrote (9061)	5/2/2002 12:37:12 PM
From: SofaSpud	Respond to of 24910

There was some discussion on RGW here three or four years ago. If you've got time to kill, I'll tell you a story. Several years ago a friend called me and asked me to take a look at RGW and tell him what I thought. Apparently an old geologist friend of his had called him and told him to mortgage his house to buy shares, that it was way better than sliced bread with a side of cold gingerale. So I poked around a bit, and called the director who was doing IR from them. He said, "we drilled for oil, and struck air." What struck me about that conversation was how remarkably unable this guy was to answer really basic questions. That was a big-time flag for me, which of course I subsequently ignored. As I understand it, it's pretty much accepted that RGW has found a multi-tcf deposit of CO2, with quite high concentrations of associated He. CO2, of course, is particularly useful for enhanced recovery in old oilfields, and one of RGW's first efforts was to secure financing to build a pipeline into California. That was derailed by the oil price crash in '98, and I haven't followed the company since to know if it ever did get back on track. Helium is considered of strategic importance in the U.S., so a He extraction program was seen as an interim money-maker to keep the project alive until the CO2 could be marketed. At times, in fact, RGW talked about the He as being more important than the CO2. When last I looked, this was their focus. I bought shares when I became convinced that the asset was for real, that they had found a ton of a marketable gas. I walked away when I became convinced that the management team wasn't up to snuff. You could be charitable and say that they were in over their heads. Or you could be cynical, and say it was just the usual VSE scam artists (and if you look at what they've done with their stock options over the years ....). I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle -- a bunch of VSE guys found something they didn't expect, and it's taken them a long time to figure out what to do with it. If you buy in today, you're banking on management having struggled far enough up the learning curve to be effective. Good luck!