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

To: RGinPG who wrote (31288)	10/29/1998 7:37:00 PM
From: Gameboy	Respond to of 95453

Outlandish theory - believe it or not If a huge majority of the world's oil reserves rests in the Middle East, as time passes, isn't Western Civilization falling more or less hostage to the Middle East? This isn't really good for the West or for the Middle East. If you were the military equivalent of a ninety pound weakling (the Middle East), would you want to hold a nine hundred pound gorilla (the US) hostage? Is there a way for superpowers, such as the US, to rest control of these oil reserves, short of war? Of course, there is. Suppose the Middle East suffered huge financial losses because the price of oil fell to never before depths. Suppose major oil companies would come to the rescue of the Middle East only if they would agree to "share" in the develop of their huge oil reserves with these major oil companies. Suppose the price of oil could be easily manipulated by major oil companies because the data used to measure crude oil inventories in the US was supplied by the major oil companies. And suppose the world is in the throes of a global recession, and the last thing it needs is high oil prices. Do I believe this theory? I don't think so, but I've challenged this thread with the BS numbers put out by the EIA (and others), from which I would conclude there is a supply/demand draw of at least a couple of million barrels/day. But there aren't builds in crude inventory and oil resists rising. Things aren't adding up. Bad data? Conspiracy aficionados check these out: Kuwait won't cave in (a little brow beating going on?): biz.yahoo.com Natural gas figures already questionable: energyintel.com I hesitate to comment on our stocks (I've been wrong in this sector bigtime) but in sharing the pain, I will mention that I've totally bailed out of this sector, for now. Initial 3rd qtr earnings figures were positive, but as more rolled in, it became obvious to me that this sector will suck in the earnings department (with many companies probably going into the red) for at least the next couple of quarters - maybe, longer - even if oil goes to $18/barrel tomorrow. Big Dog, I honestly thought you stood too close to see the forest for the trees, but I'm now a believer - that these stocks may not be undervalued, after all. Will these stocks already decimated withstand really lousy quarters? I don't know. OPEC member countries are struggling for survival - they have run out of time. Things could change dramatically any day - or maybe not. Best of luck, Steve