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

To: Mike from La. who wrote (37786)	2/18/1999 5:43:00 PM
From: dfloydr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Russia is indeed a mystery. As you say, they still have not figured out that they are in trouble. Even so, last week they announced a commitment to a whole new series of intercontinental ballistic missiles to replace the cranky, rusted birds they now have, many of which lie outside the present day Russia. How dey do dat? Why? Maybe that was just a ploy to get the world to return some attention to their financial plight? From what I read and hear of Russia today, maybe Russia has really been in trouble for all of this century. Yet somehow they got things done in the military/space field through brute force and will and without US dollar loans or European investment. I guess if the choice is starve or march as directed, they march. Their armies have not been paid in months and have been on orders to forage for food supplies since August. Maybe the foraging is better over Kosovo way? In any case, that announcement hit and oil started up. Any kind of rumble with Russia over Kosovo would be unsettling while Clinton still has not got a clue what to do with Iraq. Remember, Russia's face is present in Iraq too ... Russia supplied Saddam most of the equipment we trashed in the gulf war and they have been supplying him replacement equipment ever since that war. That is why they have also opposed all efforts put forward by the U.S. to deal with Saddam. We might suddenly have to burn a lot of oil dealing with such issues, and at the same time the world oil market could find itself cut off from the Caspian Sea and Iraqi supplies. For Russia, this could be just what they need to pull all their disperate voices together again to rebuild Mother Russia. All that is missing is a coup to get rid of Yeltsin. Hmmm ... I'm scaring myself into believing this scenario. Not surprising oil should tick upwards. Real or imagined, such a scenario might be just what is needed to get the various oil producers to look at what they are doing and decide that they are going broke at these price levels.