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

To: Jeffrey Beckman who wrote (30359)	10/5/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 95453

Good news, bad news in oil service sector. Houston Business Journal, October 5 The oil service industry's split personality was evident at an energy conference hosted by Dain Rauscher Wessels in Houston last week. While investors scurried about looking for bargains, industry contractors tried to convince anyone within earshot that oil prices will recover within a year. In the midst of all the activity, some items of interest emerged. Unlike the 1980s, most oil service companies are now carrying low levels of debt in ratio to total capitalization. This could give them a financial cushion to keep the lights on and the doors open until a sustained recovery in commodity prices occurs. As conference attendees fretted about falling prices for oil service stocks, Fortune was naming a slew of energy companies to the magazine's most recent list of "America's Fastest Growing Companies." Heading up the national list was Noble Drilling. Five other Houston energy companies also made the top 20, including Marine Drilling, Cliffs Drilling, UTI Energy, Veritas DGC and Global Marine. Dave Herasimchuk, vice president of Global Marine, offered a unique perspective on the price disparity between oil service stocks and so-called high-tech stocks. He pointed out that Amazon.com, an electronic book store operating only on the Internet, is currently trading at around $84 share after incurring losses of $28 million on sales of $148 million. In contrast, Global Marine is trading at $11 a share after reaping profits of $311 million on sales of $1.06 billion. To correct this imbalance, Herasimchuk suggested (with tongue firmly in cheek) that oil service companies start touting themselves as high-tech and begin peddling rigs on the Net.