Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: goldsnow who wrote (23186)	11/19/1998 8:46:00 PM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116763

(Part of) the Y2K report I promised from greater Denver: U.S. West reported that first and second testing done, with a "pass" scored on the second. NCE has not gotten back to me yet about the electric & gas service. From what I gather from the web site, things are less than perfect, though it appears that there is great effort in process. psco.com Water, sewer, cable, L/D service to follow with any additional reports from NCE. rh

To: goldsnow who wrote (23186)	11/21/1998 2:45:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116763

Silver lining for OPEC in lengthy low oil price 10:06 a.m. Nov 20, 1998 Eastern By Andrew Mitchell LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - For OPEC the prospect is alarming, but more of this year's crippling price pain may be the oil cartel's best long-term hope of reasserting its grip over world petroleum markets. Senior oil industry figures acknowledge that the current supply glut, anchoring prices at their lowest in real terms for a quarter of a century, could last well into next decade. This year's price slide alone will strip a third, or some $50 billion, from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) precious oil export revenues, a grim backdrop for its Vienna meeting next week. But analysts say a bout of weak prices will at least hasten foreign investment back into the group's huge low-cost reserves and undermine the costlier oil output sources that have drained its market share. ''There is a silver lining to low prices for OPEC,'' said Mehdi Varzi of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson bank. ''Little new non-OPEC oil is really profitable on $12 a barrel. There's been hardly any increase in non-OPEC output this year, showing that high-cost production is already suffering.'' Years of holding in production to try and prop up prices has left OPEC's eleven members accounting for little more than a third of world output, even though they have over two-thirds of global oil reserves. The group's spare production capacity has now swollen to four million barrels per day (bpd), after it cut some 2.6 million bpd of output this year in a bid to salvage sunken prices. Non-OPEC producers have chipped in with just 500,000 bpd of pledged cuts. Key OPEC powers such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are now reluctant to sacrifice more market share despite the threat of further price misery. ''We have to increase our share in the oil market and not to leave the market open for other producers. As a group we can raise our income by increasing our share in the market,'' Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said last month. OPEC has battled to prop up oil values since a dramatic price hike in the 'seventies, sticking to a now-defunct output quota system for nearly two decades. But this strategy laid the foundations for the ruinous supply surplus now hammering oil prices. Denied access to OPEC'S low-cost oil after a wave of nationalisations in the 1970s, the West was able to hunt out other secure supply sources, driving down costs with cutting-edge technology. Now, a stretch of oil prices near $12 a barrel would jeopardise new higher-cost projects threatening OPEC market share such as those offshore West Africa, in the North Sea and in the Caspian Sea. ''The difference with the new projects outside OPEC is that all the infrastructure needs to be put in place,'' said John Toalster of SG Securities. ''And new techniques like gas injection will struggle to be economic if prices stay this low for long.'' OPEC's cheapest production costs of just $1 of $2 a barrel contrast with a typical $7 a barrel outlay beyond the group. Authoritative OPEC insiders deny that the desire to step up market share is partnered by a wish to choke off rival production. New oil output actually embeds oil's long-term customer base in the face of challenges from alternative fuels, they say. ''Any oil and gas find anywhere is good for the oil industry because the more that is produced the more the industry perpetuates itself. There is no relief from not finding oil,'' a prominent oil minister said recently. Yet a new low price environment will spur international majors to channel their capital into developing OPEC's low-cost reserves, just as key OPEC powers start to bring foreign partners back into the upstream. Iran and Venezuela are now competing head-on with non-OPEC projects for foreign capital and technology. Iraq will open up its mighty reserves when sanctions allow, leaving only Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to take the plunge. ''Everyone wants to increase market share and the only way to do this is to get the international oil companies in,'' Franco Bernabe, chief executive of Italy's ENI said this week. ''If they all follow the Venezuelan example then their market share will increase very rapidly.'' The devastating short-term price impact of a low-cost production deluge may stop the group taking the tough decisions that could produce long-term benefits, analysts caution. Yet Bernabe argues that it will strengthen producer countries' hold over the market as the world's attention turns back to the question of declining reserves in the next century. ((London newsroom, +44 171 542 5024, fax +44 171 542 4453)) Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.