Arbetov.ca Investments Petroleum Industry Commentaries

VICTORIA Oct. 16, 2008 – The October sale of oil and gas rights resulted in a total of over $151 million in bonus bids. Yesterday’s sale brings the fiscal year-to-date total to $2.17 billion, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld announced today.

Where does the time go? Maybe when I get PetroInvest running on all eight cylinders (no let’s shoot higher and say twelve cylinders), I can get back to issuing PetroDispatch on a more regular basis.

NAPE, the North American Prospect Expo, is the major trade show of the year for micro-cap, oil and gas companies held each January in Houston.

Starting this evening and running for two more days, the NAPE® Expo is the largest oil and gas exploration and production event in the world.

In the last issue of 2004 we were looking at a raise in capital expenditure budget projections for 2005. As well meaning as the projection is, there is often a major gap between start of the year plans and end of the year reality.

OPEC the toothless tiger – Iran: this week – Opec is keeping all its options open, including cutting quotas, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told reporters.

What’s with the spot and futures prices for natural gas? They have been moving in opposite direction – spot prices falling, while futures prices continued to climb higher.

Hype – Last week I got on my soapbox (which I am known to do every now and then) and commented about hype.

Hype. In many ways we all have radar screens tuned to warn us of hype.

In some ways evaluating investments in petroleum should be easier than many investments in other industries.

“Oil prices could rise as high as $50 per barrel before the year is up”, analysts say.

This week’s commentary is more personal than normal. During the next two weeks, I will be relocating to Houston and will be suspending the weekly issue.

Oil prices finally settled down today at about $34/bbl after heavy losses ($4 to $5) last week when a build in U.S. fuel inventories staunched worries over summer gasoline supply.

Saudi Arabian officials have signed contracts with foreign oil executives to explore for natural gas in the country’s vast southern desert known as the Rub al-Khali, or Empty Quarter.