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Gold/Mining/Energy : coastal caribbean (cco@) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry Volquardsen who wrote (741)	4/2/1999 11:04:00 AM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4686

If they reviewed the Michigan vs Miller Brothers Case and could understand that one outcome of the pure legal battle could be that the State has to pay $90 million for every 10 Million Barrels of oil that they estimate is in place, the mathematics suggests $9/barrel. Since CCO can argue that tens (plural) of billions of barrels may be in place, a little additional math might suggest that tens means at least 20 BILLION times $9 works out to $180 Billion. Another estimate would suggest that this works out to around $10,000 per resident of Florida. That is assuming that punitive damages are not applicable. If Florida land was valued at $5000/acre (including all of the swamps) that would be just about the value of the entire State <G>. So, the people of Florida ought not to gamble on the outcome of a legal battle to the end. Of course these are outrageous numbers and I don't ever expect anything like that to occur. As we have all seen, legal cases can have pretty bizarre outcomes. Florida enjoyed the benefit of one such bizarre outcome in the tobacco litigation. Of course that was only $13 Billion or therabouts. Apparently Florida juries can think in big numbers <G>. Anyway, I think a settlement of a few hundred million dollars up front (and a yearly fee to not drill) would be preferable compared to risking the farm so to speak. We are talking about a small fraction of the fee paid to the Florida lawyers in the the tobacco case. We are also talking about fair dealing by the State in the face of years of fraudulent dealing with a small oil company that saw a good deal 50 years ago and took it. The Florida politicians thought they were selling a little swampland to the Beverly Hillbillys. Perhaps justice will result in vindication for the oilmen at CCO in the end.