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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: afrayem onigwecher who wrote (11444)	3/30/2003 9:03:23 PM
From: jerry manning	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

Except for Bagdad...it is over. The city will provide the Iraqi Army a final opportunity to "meet the virgins". A wonderful thought really. The oil fields are secure. Large scale destruction of oil wells in the Iraqi oil fields is unlikely.

To: afrayem onigwecher who wrote (11444)	3/31/2003 6:01:19 AM
From: ayn rand	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

"Firefighters faced the remaining two blazes at booby-trapped oil wells in Iraq's Rumeila South oil field. A team from Boots & Coots International Well Control extinguished a fire and capped a well on Saturday. Kuwaiti firefighters were battling a separate fire. Firefighters hope to put out the two fires within a week" -MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2003 4:42 AM - AP Online yippee, 2 oil wells! ;o)

To: afrayem onigwecher who wrote (11444)	3/31/2003 2:24:08 PM
From: ayn rand	Respond to of 19428

WEL not doing too well today so far, .83 and with 2 oil wells still burning?

To: afrayem onigwecher who wrote (11444)	4/9/2003 9:45:47 AM
From: RockyBalboa	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 19428

Boots & Coots staring at bankruptcy despite Iraq Tuesday April 8, 6:13 pm ET By C. Bryson Hull HOUSTON, April 8 (Reuters) - Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc. (AMEX:WEL - News) acknowledged on Tuesday that it still faces bankruptcy risk despite the cash infusion it expects for its work battling oil well fires in Iraq. The Houston-based oil field firefighting company on March 28 rejected a proposal from one of its lenders, Checkpoint Business Inc., to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy and cancel shareholders' equity. But Chairman Kirk Krist said the company's substantial debt -- $21 million at the end of 2002 -- means bankruptcy is still a possibility despites its efforts to the contrary. "The board of directors and senior executives continue to work toward an out-of-court restructuring of the company," Krist said in a conference call in which the company took no questions except for written submissions. Checkpoint, a mysterious group of investors chartered in Panama that Boots & Coots has refused to identify, lent the company up to $1 million in December and soon thereafter declared the loan to be in default. Boots & Coots on March 28 said it paid off roughly $700,000 in principal and interest it owed Checkpoint. Checkpoint's bankruptcy proposal led some investors to question whether it was a grab for control of Boots & Coots before it secured the substantial business fighting the Iraq oil well fires. Boots & Coots and competitors Wild Well Control, a subsidiary of Superior Energy Service Inc. (NYSE:SPN - News), are the two firefighting companies subcontracted by Halliburton Inc.'s (NYSE:HAL - News) engineering arm KBR to battle oil well blazes in southern Iraq. Both companies are now in Iraq's Rumaila oil fields fighting oil fires set by fleeing Iraqi soldiers. Boots & Coots Chief Executive Jerry Winchester did not elaborate on the company's progress or operations in Iraq. Halliburton, once run by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, on March 24 was awarded a U.S. Defense Department (News - Websites) contract to rebuild Iraq's oil production infrastructure. CHECKPOINT MYSTERY The identity of Checkpoint's principals remains a mystery, although Boots & Coots on Tuesday denied that any of Checkpoint's members had ever worked for the company. Checkpoint still has an option to buy Boots & Coots' Venezuelan subsidiary, but has not signaled its intention to do so, Krist said. Kevin Johnson, the vice president of finance for Boots & Coots, said the company had assets of $4 million and total liabilities of $21 million at the end of 2002. That equalled a working capital deficit of $17 million, he said. "This resulted in a deficit on shareholders' equity of $14 million," Johnson said. Last week, Boots & Coots reported a net loss of $9.2 million for 2002, compared with net income of $1.3 million in 2001. When dividends for preferred shareholders were figured in, the loss to common shareholders for 2002 was $12.3 million, or 28 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $1.6 million, or 4 cents a share, in 2001. Shares of Boots & Coots, which has been threatened with delisting from the American Stock Exchange, closed on Tuesday at 61 cents, down 6 cents or nearly 9 percent.