Falklands : Hydrocarbons Daily Record (04/09/06)
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 05.09.2006 (Article Archived on 19.09.2006)
Several Latin American Countries are goig to the poles to pick leaders who could nationalise hydrocarbons assets.
HYDROCARBONS DAILY RECORD: MONDAY, 04 SEPTEMBER 2006
By J. Brock (FINN)
At 1800 LMT on Monday, 04 September 2006 Light Sweet Crude fell .54 Cents to stand at $68.64 and Brent Crude lost $1.44 Cents to stand at $67.71.
TRENDS
Now that President Chavez is back in Venezuela it is time for electioneering. He faces a difficult time but only time will tell if his policies of nationalisation will work for the people. E has already lost a vote on indefinite re-election – a key policy. One would think that the Economic troubles that Bolivia is facing would stop the trend of nationalisation. This could have been a major factor in why the price of crude has dropped today.
THE MARKETS
FTSE
At the close of play today, the FTSE 100 was up 37.45 points to settle at 5,986.60 and the FTSE 250 was up 57.70 points to end up at 9,759.80. FTSE Small Cap closed up 8.11 points to settle at 3,470.40.
DOW JONES AND NASDAQ
At the end of play today the Dow Jones Index increased 83.00 points or 0.73% to settle at 11,464.15 and the NASDAQ closed flat to settle at 2,193.16.
DEVELOPING REGIONAL FACTORS:
There are two up coming elections in Ecuador and Nicaragua. In recent elections there was a trend for left wing candidates to increase popularity such as in Mexico’s election in July where Sr. Obrador lost by a microscopic margin. Peru’s election resulted in a more definitive loss for the left wing candidate. Bolivia’s left leaning Candidate, Evo Morales, won. Now it’s Venezuela’s turn for the ballot box. At the moment it’s difficult to call.
There seemed to be a trend to elect left leaning candidates resulting in nationalisation of hydrocarbons assets. For the people it’s a wonderful feeling to get money that belongs to them back from international investors, who seem to be taking an extraordinary amount of the country’s wealth. What they didn’t think of was the money in government coffers needed to make nationalisation work. If it does work, nationalisation will take a long time to bare fruit – the people, as shown in the Bolivian protests, want immediate results. And, that’s not going to happen.
Ecuador has initiated a windfall tax, which seems to be middle ground. It takes into account the increased profits oil companies are making due to high oil prices, yet does not require national investment in order to claw back a share of the profits.
(Falkland Islands)
We still await the rig that will tell us for sure how big our reserves are. We know the oil is there but until we sink a well that generates commercial quantities of hydrocarbons we’re on hold.
Share prices at the close of play on Monday, 04 September 2006
Desire Petroleum Plc was up 0.59 points or 1.32% on the day to settle at 38.50.
Falkland Oil and Gas Limited (FOGL) lost 2.00 points on the day to stand at 118.00.
Rockhopper Exploration ended up1.00 points on the day to settle at 39.00
Borders & Southern ended unchanged on the day at 45.25
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