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To: DEER HUNTER who wrote (9508)	2/21/1999 3:38:00 AM
From: DEER HUNTER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11888

Also from Friday....Hurricane having a difficult time of it also. biz.yahoo.com Friday February 19, 4:07 pm Eastern Time FOCUS-Canada's Hurricane Hydrocarbons makes big cuts By Jeffrey Jones CALGARY, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Canada's struggling Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. (Toronto:HHLa.TO - news), pressured by contractual squabbling at its big Kazakhstan oil operation and by depressed crude prices, said on Friday it was laying off more than 1,000 workers to cut costs by 35 percent. Calgary-based Hurricane, which has been searching for a buyer or partner for several months, said the deepest cuts would be at its Kazakhstan operation, where it plans to lay off more than 20 percent of its Kazakh workers in the next month. The number represents more than 1,000 of its 5,200 domestic employees in that country. Even more staff would be laid off by the middle of this year, the company said. Hurricane, a small oil concern that bought Kazakhstan's state-owned energy firm Yuzhneftegaz -- complete with an oil field, drilling company, farm and construction firm -- in late 1996, also said it made large-percentage cuts to its smaller complement of Canadian-based and expatriate staff. Since November, it reduced those employee numbers by 40 percent, including layoffs of 16 head office workers and 60 expatriates working in Kazakhstan. Hurricane noted it has made big cuts to its capital projects since the third quarter of 1998, but that oil productive capacity was still higher than its current output. Hurricane spokesman Ihor Wasylkiw said the Kazakh layoffs were the result of testing to determine whether workers were qualified to do their various jobs. Hurricane had agreed not to cut staff for 18 months after it bought Yuzhneftegaz. ''In the process, what we're finding, not surprisingly, is that all people do not pass the requirements,'' Wasylkiw said. ''When times were still good we were able to maintain the staff. Now we're realizing that reductions are just one of those evils we don't like doing but we have to go through.'' The Canadian company is developing the Kumkol oil field in the Kyzyl Orda region in Kazakhstan's south, where reserves are estimated at 429 million barrels of oil. Last year it became embroiled in a dispute with that country's Chimkent refinery over the amount of money the plant charged to process Hurricane's crude, and the two parties have been attempting to resolve the situation this year. Hurricane supplies 75 percent of the refinery's oil. The oil producer, faced with a cash crunch stemming from its ability to process the crude and a plunging stock price, kicked off efforts in October to find a buyer or joint venture partner. Its longtime chief executive, John Komarnicki, also resigned at the time. Wasylkiw said talks with the refinery were continuing after a meeting in January to discuss the testy relationship. ''There are still a number of outstanding issues that we are pursuing and one of them is the issue of the processing fee and the yield on the product we're getting,'' he said. Hurricane shares in Toronto were up C$0.04 to C$1.38 on Friday, 87 percent off a 52-week high of C$10.75. The company said its average oil production was now 52,891 barrels a day, down from 61,220 barrels a day in December. The drop was attributed to a big buildup of refined product inventory and a soft Kazakhstan market. ($1=$1.49 Canadian)

To: DEER HUNTER who wrote (9508)	3/3/1999 8:15:00 PM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11888

Financial Times, Wednesday: US push on Caspian pipeline deal By Leyla Boulton in Ankara The US yesterday urged reluctant oil companies to conclude a deal to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish port of Ceyhan while oil prices were low at $11 a barrel. Mark Parris, US ambassador to Turkey, said regional governments were most likely to make maximum concessions when the project looked least attractive commercially. "A 30-year oil project is not built on one-year price forecasts," he said. "So when will companies get more favourable terms? When they come back when prices are at $18 a barrel, will the companies be in a stronger position? The time to decide is now." However, he added that Turkey, Europe's fastest growing energy market which has lobbied in favour of the project with the US, would also have to compensate companies for any overruns on a project Ankara estimates would cost $2.4bn Wref Digings, director of Caspian exports at British Petroleum Amoco, said nobody in the industry was "willing to bet on a sustained" rise in the price of oil. Tomorrow, Turkey resumes negotiations with Azerbaijan, the main Caspian exporter, and oil companies over a possible deal. Mr Parris said the project could promote stability in the Caspian region and avoid the "problematic" alternative of transporting oil and gas through Iran. Ziya Aktas, Turkish energy minister, said that companies also had to factor into their cost calculations the heightened risk of an oil tanker accident in the Bosporus, the waterway which divides Istanbul. The waterway would see more traffic without the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline to offload extra oil from the Caspian. Mr Aktas said that the other priority for Turkish energy policy was to promote a pipeline to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey. After claiming the market could also support an alternative Russian-Italian gas pipeline project, known as Blue Stream, he brushed off suggestions by the US ambassador that simultaneously encouraging multiple pipeline projects could lead to none being built.