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

To: Big Dog who wrote (34633)	1/9/1999 1:16:00 PM
From: The Ox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

So, RIG will be trading in the 300s soon?

To: Big Dog who wrote (34633)	1/9/1999 1:32:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 95453

North Sea: Outlook 'horrific' for troubled drill sector Aberdeen Press & Journal, Saturday December 9 DRILLING contractors last year suffered one of the toughest years ever in the North Sea and EIS Energy Information Services Limited predicts 1999 will get even more dreadful. "The year 1998 will go down as just about the worst in the modern history of the oil industry," the analyst said in its latest Drilling Weekly annual report. But, while it was bad in the UK sector, it was "little short of disastrous" in Norwegian waters. "It is difficult to see what might happen to initiate a reversal of the strongest downtrend since the crash of 1986," said the just published report. "There is almost no cause for optimism in the near term." "The short term outlook is ... horrific." The report says many projects have been deferred as being uneconomic at current prices and that very few are coming forward to replace new field projects reaching completion. "Hence, rigs will be released and charter rates will fall but not enough, one suspects, to restore viability for sub-marginal projects, while viability of services industries will be threatened." The analysts warn that, even when times get better and the money is there to drill more wells, there will not be enough skilled manpower, unless "body shops" and consultants are used. Drilling Weekly's report said predicting the decline this year was not easy. "The message of history is that, when oil prices bounce, they recover very rapidly. "Most of the leading North Sea operators have, however, announced their exploration budgets for the coming year and these demonstrate in general a 30-50% decline on 1998. "There is a real danger that the final year of the 1990s will also be its worst, in activity terms." Part of that activity generally includes the drilling of so-called obligation wells, which come as part and parcel of exploration licence permits. "The industry no longer has the capacity for all obligation wells to be fulfilled. "There are literally hundreds of outstanding wells from past licensing rounds, many of which will never now be drilled, the Department of Trade and Industry having dropped all pretence of penalising those who fail to honour their promises," said the report. It means eight of the North Sea's most active operators - Amoco, BP, Exxon, Kerr-McGee, Mobil, Oryx, Petrofina and Total - are expected to "sit on their exploration hands" for most of the year. Although the outlook is bleak, the EIS Energy Information Services team warns against writing the North Sea off. It had in the past been scrapped several times by those lacking vision and would bounce back - in time. pressandjournal.co.uk

To: Big Dog who wrote (34633)	1/9/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: marc chatman	Respond to of 95453

BD, that's precisely why it will be so difficult to short the nets when the bubble pops. I believe these stocks could fall a huge number of points before there is so much as an uptick to short, and as soon as there is an uptick we could see a huge bounce up before the next nosedive -- the specialists and mm's will be cleaning out traders in both directions. It's very difficult to catch limit orders on shorts in a diving market, and I'm sure everyone has heard the horror stories about using market orders for the nets. For anyone who does successfully short the nets, way to go (in advance)!! If I thought I could do it, I would.

To: Big Dog who wrote (34633)	1/10/1999 12:02:00 AM
From: Q.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

re. <<five companies (FGI, RDC, PGO, VRC, RIG) ... had sales of three billion, three hundred and eighteen million dollars. I hate to belabor the obvious, but that is 550,000,000 times the sales of EBAY>> Uh, did anybody else notice the arithmetic goof in this post? It's a whopper. EBAY had $30 M sales in the trailing 12 mos. The $3 B sales for the 5 oilpatch stocks amounts to only 100 X that of EBAY. Which is 5 million times less extreme than indicated in Big Dog's post. I'm not belittling the absurdity of internet valuations, and I agree with Big Dog's point. But I wonder if maybe the 0 key on his keyboard got stuck ;-)