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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (17167)	9/1/1998 6:32:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116901

Moscow worried by region's control of gold output 04:36 p.m Sep 01, 1998 Eastern By Aleksandras Budrys MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian state gold officials were alarmed Tuesday over the prospects of reduced gold deliveries from the Yakutia region after a decree by its leader putting gold production there under control of local authorities. Siberia's autonomous republic of Yakutia-Sakha is one of Russia's main gold-producing regions. The Russian federal law on precious metals and stones gives Gokhran, preferential rights in buying gold from producers. ''All gold sales to Russia's Gokhran and to commercial banks will be made only after coordination with the Precious Metals, Stones and Currency Committee of the Sakha (Yakutia) government,'' said the decree, signed by Sakha President Mikhail Nikolayev last week. ''If Yakutia fails to meet its obligations we will stop advance payments to Yakutian gold miners and will appeal to an arbitration court to protect our property rights,'' Vladimir Skripchenko, deputy department head at the Gokhran state fund for precious metals and stones, said. Skripchenko said supplies have not yet been interrupted and Gokhran was still expecting fresh deliveries this month. Sakha representative in Moscow Kliment Ivanov told Reuters the decree was not affecting deliveries to Gokhran. ''The supplies (to Gokhran) will not be reduced,'' he said. However, Ivanov said the republic planned to impose quotas on gold sales to Gokhran and to commercial banks. ''It is the kind of support the producers will be interested in,'' he said. He said the decree was designed to guarantee safety of gold deliveries and the interests of gold miners. ''We are better fit to guarantee the safety as we are closer to gold production than Gokhran,'' Ivanov said. Sakha-Yakutia produced about 20 tons of gold in 1997 and was expected to produce an equal amount this year, Ivanov said. Russia's gold output in 1997 fell to 106 tons from 113 tons in the previous year. Sakha also mines 95 percent of Russia's diamonds. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (17167)	9/1/1998 8:03:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116901

ot Microsoft sifts e-mail moans at Netscape By Andrew Cave in New York E-MAIL whinges from staff of software firm Netscape, ranging from canteen food to company politics, have been subpoenaed by arch-rival Microsoft as it prepares for an anti-trust trial brought by the US government this month. <Picture> Chinese girls perform during the launch of Microsoft's mainland Chinese version of Windows 98 in Beijing yesterday Critical comments, dubbed "flame mail", are contained in electronic forums run by Netscape employees. They could be used by Microsoft's lawyers to argue that Netscape's declining share of the browser market was caused by management errors or weak products and not by predatory practices by Microsoft, as the US government claims. One forum, Bad Attitude, vents comments ranging from the cafeteria to competitors while another, Really Bad Attitude, contains barbed messages about Netscape's workplace and products. The forums were created by Jamie Zawinski, one of Netscape's first employees, who says on his personal web site that Bad Attitude was "an 'anything goes' forum for venting . . . a place to get things off your chest in as inappropriate and vitriolic a way as you felt like". Mr Zawinski said Really Bad Attitude was a private mailing list. "You could be on RBA only if you first flamed so hard that bile flowed from your eye sockets," he said. His web site says that Really Bad Attitude clocked up 4,000 messages in two years. "Microsoft is going to pay some . . . lawyer $200 an hour to find out that we hate our cafeteria food, don't like the security posters . . . and think Navigator was a cooler name than Communicator," Mr Zawinski said. Microsoft spokesman Mark Thomas said: "We are not commenting on any specific subpoenas other than saying that we are preparing to go to court in September."

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (17167)	9/1/1998 8:13:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116901

FOCUS-Offshore workers flee as Gulf storm intensifies 06:56 p.m Sep 01, 1998 Eastern By Andrew Kelly HOUSTON, (Reuters) - Hundreds of offshore workers fled for safety and scores of oil and gas platforms were closed down on Tuesday as the industry braced itself for a storm expected to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast at hurricane strength later this week. Oil companies that had seemed relaxed about the need to take precautions on Monday were scrambling on Tuesday to get their staff out of harm's way and batten down the hatches of their valuable hardware in the normally placid Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Earl's center was about 240 miles south-southwest of New Orleans, at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. The storm was moving north-northeast about 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour). Forecasters expected the tropical storm to become a hurricane by Wednesday morning and said it was most likely to come ashore somewhere between New Orleans and Freeport, Texas. Oil giant Exxon Corp. said it was evacuating 300 offshore workers by boat and helicopter and was halting production at some 80 to 90 offshore oil and gas structures. In contrast to other companies, Exxon declined to specify the production volumes affected by the measures which will only be lifted once the storm has passed. Exxon spokesman Bob Davis said the evacuations and closures took place in an area from the mid-Louisiana coast to the mouth of the Mississippi River and extending some 200 miles offshore. Uncertainty about the course of the storm and its strength made it necessary to evacuate a fairly wide area. ''It's highly unpredictable right now. There's a lot of uncertainty regarding the storm and what is going to transpire,'' he told Reuters. Shell Oil Co., a unit of Royal Dutch/Shell Group , shut in about 75 percent of its U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas production, a company spokeswoman in New Orleans said late Tuesday, adding: ''That's 225,000 barrels per day of oil and 1.42 billion cubic feet a dat of natural gas that is shut in now.'' Evacuations of Shell offshore crews were continuing by boat and helicopter, she said. As of 2 p.m. central daylight time, 1,356 of Shell's 1,776 offshore workers had been evacuated, she noted. Amoco Corp. said it had evacuated 160 offshore workers from 30 platforms in the central Gulf of Mexico and closed down offshore gas facilities that would normally produce some 175 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. It said the High Island Pipeline System, that it operates on behalf of several companies, was carrying only 9,000 barrels a day of crude oil, compared with a normal volume of some 50,000 barrels and added that it might have to close completely. Spokesman John Lloyd said Amoco hadn't waited for the storm to intensify before acting so as to avoid a last-minute rush. ''There are a lot of companies out there in the Gulf and you're going to be competing for limited helicopter services, so we're always extra cautious,'' he said. Shell Oil Co. said it had ''shut in'' daily production of about 190 million cubic feet of natural gas and some 90,000 barrels of oil; the Royal Dutch/Shell Group unit said it expected these figures to rise. The U.S. Minerals Management Service, which oversees Gulf oil and gas production, struggled to keep on top of the data from the various companies and said it would publish an overview on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, located 20 miles south of Grand Isle, said it had stopped unloading crude oil tankers until the storm was over. Spokesman Dale Rollins said the deepwater port usually unloads about one tanker a day with an average cargo of 1.1 million barrels of crude oil. Disruption to production in the Gulf of Mexico -- which produces roughly a sixth of all U.S. oil and a quarter of all U.S. gas -- helped push up the price of both commodities on Tuesday. In New York, October crude oil futures firmed 39 cents to settle at $13.73 a barrel while the October natural gas contract closed 3.4 cents higher at $1.786 per million British thermal units. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.