Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
I know they have just hired a new IR person, and I believe they are finally embarking on a widescale publicity campaign.
Be nice to sink what's left of EQBM over here eh Poker?
Wow! You have some big plans for this company.
Are they going to start a marketing campaign soon? Seems like there is lots of potential here for fairly rapid growth.
Yes, I have it on good authority they will be updating their website with current numbers.
The OS I posted came directly from their corporate attorney.
However, there hasn't been much growth to date in the OS, and the insiders still control most of the float, and I was told emphatically they have no intention of selling.
My attitude is that CPPT is a long term hold. I see this stock going to $1.00-$2.00, and then onto higher valuations.
I think they have every intention of actually moving to Nasdaq. As they are a reporting OTCBB, it isn't that much of a stretch.
With the income potential we're looking at here, dollars are not out of reach.
I know I'm very enthusiastic at this moment, but I look at companies like Schlumberger to see the growth potential in a firm that provides essential services to the drilling and mining industry.
Nice stock and site SL. Just started looking at this. The share info on their website is different from what you have in the box and I'm assuming that is dated info (See below):
Terra Insight Corporation - Fundamentals - information as of November 7, 2005
Public since May 19, 2005 via reverse acquisition with CompuPrint, Inc. (parent holding company)
Symbol: CPPT (OTCBB)
Shares Outstanding: 41,508,338
Public Float: 3,892,200
Management Owns: 35,029,980
Fully Diluted: 49,271,671
I see they have some unproven gas and oil propertie assets worth over 4M. Have you had a chance to research much on the co.? Sorry if you have gone over this already. Let me know if I can help.
CPPT in a nutshell: "STeP™ is responsible for completion of over thirty applied projects with various clients in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, South America, and Russia. The average success rate of prediction and localization of commercially viable deposits of hydrocarbons, gold, diamonds, and water is over 75%.
The approximate total volumes of petroleum deposits (in localized traps) amounted to over 90 million tons (including 40 million tons in Sakhalin, 20 to 25 million tons in Penza, 10 million tons off-shore block 2-2 Kunsan, South Korea).
The economic merit of the STeP™ adoption amounted to at least $5 million per project. "
...Since 1997, this technology has been tested at more than sixty fields and has yielded outstanding results. Its use proved to reduce geological exploration costs by, in some cases, 500% and shorten new field prospecting time to a few months.
Recent Prs:
________________________________________________
~ CPPT Selected By Multi-Billion Dollar Minerals Exploration and Trading Company To Provide STeP Technology For Diamond Exploration in the Republic of Congo...CPPT will receive 6% working interest, an up-front fee for services, plus a "success fee" from revenues. They say they expect this may the first of many jobs from this family of companies..."
_______________________________________________
~ Turkish Çalik Enerji signs partnership agreement with CPPT for oil&gas exploration
New York City based US company, CompuPrint, Inc. CPPT -an energy technology company that combines satellite-based technology with traditional exploration services, announced that Terra Insight Corporation (TIC), its wholly-owned operating company, signed an agreement with the Çalik Enerji, a leading Turkish energy company with holdings throughout the Middle East, to jointly explore eight onshore blocks in the Erzurum area of eastern Turkey.
Previously, this highly desirable area had been restricted because of Turkish military activities. Pursuant to the agreement between TIC and Çalik Enerji, Terra Insight Corporation will utilize its proprietary satellite-based STeP technology to identify hydrocarbon exploration targets. TIC is to receive payment for the survey as well as a 20% working interest in the project.
"We are pleased that Çalik has recognized the potential of our STeP technology," said Roman Rozenberg, Chief Executive Officer. "With energy prices near record levels, companies are increasingly seeking to identify additional drilling opportunities. Our technology allows for the cost-effective exploration of energy properties in ways that have never been done before, identifying the parcels that are most likely to result in successful exploration results." ... Previously, this highly desirable area had been restricted because of Turkish military activities.
_____________________________________________________
Friday October 13, 6:07 pm ET
$750,000 Received on $2.5 Million Contract
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CompuPrint, Inc. (OTCBB:CPPT - News), an energy and natural resource exploration technology company, has received the first payment of $750,000 from a major oil and gas exploration and production company in connection with a $2.5 million service contract the Company received in August 2006. ...
"We are proud that one of the world leaders in off-shore oil and gas exploration recognizes the value of STeP®. Our technology will enable our client to more effectively and efficiently exploit its exploration efforts and achieve substantial time and dollar savings," said Roman Rozenberg, CompuPrint's Chief Executive Officer. "We have already demonstrated that we can help substantially reduce the number of dry holes in off-shore drilling. We are optimistic that our STeP® technology will open more opportunities to work with this client and other major exploration companies. The Company is currently in negotiations with several potential clients to render services."
source: http://www.terrainsight.com/
SHHHHH you have to be very quiet when hunting wabbits.
Elmer
I agree....nice and easy to .30 and .34..quietly...slowly..discreetly...then we make our move to the 200 day....break that...and slowly build an MCNS like chart over time. Shhhhh
Oh you have gotten my attention on this one I just need to free up some money and off I go LOL
Good to see you here, buddy!
Today's volume 11 times the daily average..
Why you would be correct sir! Tell us Dick what this man has won!
Well...for visiting the CPPT board today...and getting that correct answer..you sir have won a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!!! Congratulations!
Oh..and make sure you get a bunch of CPPT.
Something is up for sure... the chart looks amazing.
Amazing is the correct word here... all indicators are green... I think we might officially be breaking out here.
All we need now is volume... and look out...
"care and share" r me middle names.
i am curious to hear how well their tech works on finding mineralisation - it appears to find liquid - that might be easier.
Okay. My question was one the finance guy could answer.
When you speak with Dmitry, please let us know what you find out, if you care to share.
thanks i rang again - i need to talk to Dmitry (sp?) - mine was a technical enquiry.
Just got a call back from Eric, their "finance guy". He was very friendly and helpful, but asked me to go back to the 10Q to confirm the public float held by insiders. He said none of those numbers have changed, fwiw.
I also asked him if they have any competitors in this field, and he said 3-d Seismic in some ways, but no one has their proprietary algorithms to collect and analyze the data.
Hope this helps. You can call yourself and wait for a call back.
CPPT L2: 10,000 volume Fri, 100,000 today!
I left a message for them after your post, and let you know when I hear back.
I expect the principles in the company to be travelling, and spending time between the Moscow office and NYC.
If nothing within a few days, maybe I'll start getting concerned.
I get into NYC about twice a week, I'll see if I can visit the office at some point soon.
curious to know if anyone has talked to these guys. i sent them an email and got nout.
CPPT is a fundamentals play in several important way:
1) Company fundamentals: CPPT (Terra Insights) is sole licensee for what until recently was highly classified russian military technology which pinpoints mineral, energy, even water resources beneath the earth's surface, with over 75% accuracy.
2) low OS (55MM), low AS (61MM) and low float (6,322,755 MM)
3) NO DEBT - the company just PRed the conversion of any outstanding convertible debentures into common stock, to be sold at a pre-assigned price at least 150% above the current PPS.
4) Commodities play: Every single gold company, oil company, metal ore, even diamond company in the world can be a client of CPPT. They have proven they can save up to $5MM per project, and help exploration companies begin to eliminate the percentage of costly "dry holes"
5) Direct Gold Mining, Oil and Diamond play: CPPT (Terra Insights) currently has contracts to participate in the revenue of various diamond mining, oil and gas drilling projects around the world). These earnings will be IN ADDITION to the fees they receive for their services, which average $2.5MM per job.
Terra Insight: background on the technology
The proprietary technology that Terra Insights utilizes to locate mineral and water deposits was first developed as a Top Secret military project under the Soviet Union during the cold war.
It uses a combination of satellite imagery, infrared, thermal sensors to create an 'x-ray" picture of geographical terrain, and that data is then analyzed by complex proprietary mathematical algorithms. This is what sets Terra Insight far in advance of any competition, and which accounts for their phenomenal 75% success rate.
Terra Insight's top management have vast familiarity with the Russian oil, gas and mining industry, as well as excellent connections within the Kremlin itself. The Chairman of the Board, Ivan Railyan, Mr. Railyan served as the Head of Research and Development team of the Russian Defense Ministry, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
History: The Russian Oil and Gas Industry 2000-2004
Since 2000, oil production in Russia has been increasing at truly Stakhanovite rates. Western oil giants have not even dreamt of such growth rates. YUKOS and Sibneft have increased production by 14-19% annually. The only large company that has been able to surpass them is Slavneft, which last year pumped out 24% more oil than in 2002. It is worth noting that by that time Slavneft had ceased to be a state company and “Stakhanovites” from Sibneft had taken over its production activities. As a result, oil production in Russia increased from 323.5 million tons in 2000 to 421.4 million tons in 2003. This year, according to oil company forecasts, it will be 426-453 million tons.
Exports have increased at the same accelerated rates. This year, 240 million tons of oil will be exported through Transneft's pipelines, whereas the maximum export volume from the USSR was 134 million tons per year at a production rate of 600 million tons. Last year, government officials proudly announced that Russia had become the world's largest oil and fuel exporter, overtaking even Saudi Arabia.
However, gas production volumes dropped in Russia in the first two years of Vladimir Putin's presidency: Gazprom produced 523.1 billion m3 of gas on the results of 2000 and 512 billion m3 on the results of 2001 (the share of the remaining companies was 61 billion m3 and 69 billion m3, respectively). It appeared as though Russia was on the verge of disaster: there was a danger of nonfulfilment of contracts with the EU, some of which had been signed by the USSR. But no disaster occurred. Gazprom produced 521.9 billion m3 in 2002 and 540.3 billion m3 in 2003, exceeding the starting figure (the remaining companies added 60 billion m3 to this). This year, Gazprom officials expect to increase production to 542 billion m3, and new projects (such as development of the shelf of the northern seas, the Northern European gas pipeline, and completion of construction of the Yamal–Europe gas pipeline) should allow Russia to at least maintain its positions on the EU energy market.
History: 2000-2004
The oil and gas industry has become the overall leader in the Russian economy in the past four years. Direct participation in its development is the reason for industry's financial prosperity.
The History of Slavneft
The attacks on the state company Slavneft, a respectable piece of state-owned oil property that the government had promised to put up for sale, began in 2001. Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) began the first massive buy-up of Slavneft shares and subsidiaries. TNK co-owner Viktor Vekselberg reiterated that Slavneft's main production subdivision, Megionneftegaz, would fit ideally into TNK's process flowsheet. Mikhail Gutseriev, who was head of Slavneft at the time and had his own plans to buy the company through BIN Bank, which he had set up, accepted battle with a passion. He announced that he would buy TNK lock, stock, and barrel and set up centers in Nizhnevartovsk (where most of TNK's production capacity was based) to buy up shares in the company's subsidiaries.
However, it was not TNK but Sibneft that succeeded in breaking up Slavneft and privatizing it. In spring and summer 2002, it forced the previous managers out of the state company and put its own managers in place. The Slavneft building on Pyatnitskaya Street changed hands several times like a war trophy. First, structures belonging to Gutseriev, along with Mezhprombank, which was friendly with them at the time, and the police seized it. Then it was taken over by senior Sibneft managers with security guards and once again the police. Sibneft won – it ousted Mikhail Gutseriev and brought its own people to Slavneft (Yury Sukhanov, who is now the company's president, is Sibneft's former vice-president for commerce).
What happened later was a question of method. In fall 2002, the Russian Fund for Federal Property (RFFI) put up 74.95% of Slavneft's shares for sale at a starting price of $1.7 billion. The auction was held on December 18, and after a four-minute pretence of open bidding, the winner was ZAO Investoil, which was representing the interests of Sibneft and TNK equally: the company offered $160 million over the starting price for Slavneft. But since then, the tender winners have clearly been unable to divide the purchased property equally – there are too many multipurpose assets.
The History of Gazprom
The Russian gas industry has been awaiting two events for the past four years – reform of the pricing system and the large-scale entry of oil companies onto the gas market. Neither one has happened. But you can understand that the government, which controls Gazprom, had more pressing problems to solve at the time, and solved them quite successfully. The actions of Aleksey Miller's team at Gazprom, which had already replaced Rem Vyakhirev's team by summer 2001, can be divided into three parts. First, there was a resolution of the problem of corporate governance; second, the recovery of Gazprom assets lost under the previous management; and third, a change in the company's foreign policy orientation.
For a long time, it was believed that debt was Gazprom's main internal problem. It is still impossible to say whether that this problem has finally been solved, but it is obvious today that the burden on Gazprom was exaggerated. Today, Gazprom has recovered its status as the country's potentially largest borrower. At the same time, the reorganization of corporate governance is not all that obvious to the market. It is based on measures such as reform of the company's budgets and changes in internal norms.
However, the recovery of assets was highly publicized and caused a real upheaval on the market. Some of Gazprom's major victories included the recovery of Zapsibgazprom assets and the effective exclusion of Itera from the business in the CIS.
Gazprom started the game in the foreign gas market with extremely high stakes – the struggle for Central Asia. Between 2001 and 2003, the company succeeded in signing long-term contracts for delivery of large volumes of gas from Uzbekistan, and starting in 2004, from Turkmenistan.
Gazprom achieved one more victory in 2003. Since that time, gas has been sold on the Russian market (60% of production) at zero profitability. These operations had been loss-making planned transactions since the beginning of the 1990s.
However, the issue of gas market and pricing reform remains a task of the second presidential term.
The History of TNK and BP
The owners of TNK began talking about plans to merge the company's assets with BP's Russian assets as early as mid-2000. However, at that time, there was talk only of TNK and BP setting up a joint venture that would include the assets of OAO Chernogorneft. In 1999, TNK had masterfully taken this production company away from SIDANKO Oil Company, which just happened to be controlled by BP managers. There was a worldwide scandal when BP launched a high-power campaign to discredit TNK and its owners, the AAR consortium, which included Alfa Group, Access Industries, and Renova. The American Ex-Im Bank, influential American senators, and even then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright took part in the campaign.
An agreement was reached only in early 2003. On June 26, BP officials and TNK shareholders signed all the documents for a merger of the companies' assets in Russia and Ukraine. The event was surrounded with pomp: Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were present at the signing. Notably, TNK president Semen Kukes did not have a place in the merged company – he had turned down the honorary position of advisor to the president of TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, and went to work for YUKOS.
Today, BP and AAR each own 50% of the assets of TNK-BP, which produced about 60 million tons of oil last year. AAR's contribution to the new company in percentage of shares is as follows: TNK, 97%; ONAKO Oil Company, 93%; SIDANKO, 57%; Slavneft, 50%; Rusia Petroleum, 29%; Rospan International, 44%; and a 50% stake in the Sakhalin-6 project. BP for its part brought in 25% of the shares of SIDANKO, 30% of the shares of Rusia Petroleum, and 76% of the shares of Petrol Complex (a Moscow chain of BP gas stations). As compensation for the difference in asset values, BP paid AAR $3.95 billion in cash and committed to transferring its shares for $3.75 billion. The securities will be transferred in three yearly tranches of $1.25 billion each in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
TNK-BP was set up as a model company that was supposed to demonstrate to the world financial community that it really could invest billions of dollars in Russia. This explains Putin and Blair's participation in the final stage of the negotiations. However, according to Vlast's information, a dispute between the executives remaining from TNK and the British management has been brewing for a long time. The Russians think the British are too slow-moving, and the British think the Russians are little more than “highway robbers” who do not want to conduct business in a civilized manner. By all accounts, the differences have already reached the point where the Russian owners of TNK-BP have started negotiations for advance payment of the $3.75 billion still owing by BP.
The History of YUKOS and Sibneft
The merger of YUKOS and Sibneft announced in April 2003 was initially viewed as a political, rather than a business deal. Relations between the two companies had always been complicated. In 1998, they attempted to unite into the YUKSI holding, but within five months they announced the end of their joint existence. The merger of YUKOS and Sibneft last year would have resulted in the appearance of a structure that would have been far more than a private production company, no matter what country it was located in. Its reserves would have amounted to 19.4 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent, surpassing ExxonMobil (12 billion barrels) in this indicator. It would have been the world's fourth-largest producer: in 2003, YUKOS and Sibneft pumped out 2.3 million barrels per day (115 million tons of oil per year).
But what followed after the announcement of the merger showed that the political component of the process was far from the private interests of the owners, and the “private traders” (at least those at YUKOS) had almost nothing to do with it. On July 2, 2003, the Prosecutor General's office arrested Platon Lebedev, head of Group MENATEP, which owns 41% of YUKOS's shares, and then YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky on October 25. The Ministry of Taxation accused the company of nonpayment of $3.5 billion in taxes.
The split-up of the companies that began late last year is proceeding very slowly. In February 2004, they announced that their shareholders had reached an agreement in principle on partition (YUKOS currently owns 92% of Sibneft's shares), but no real steps in this direction have been made. There is the impression that the shareholders and management of YUKOS are not interested in a split. Mikhail Brudno, one of the company's owners, who is hiding out in Israel, corroborated this assumption with Vlast: “All of the companies' owners were interested in the merger, so it went ahead quickly. No split is underway, although Sibneft is doing everything possible to spur it on. So there is someone who doesn't need it.”
The History of Production Sharing Agreements
Early this year, the American companies ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco forfeited the right to develop three blocks of the Sakhalin-3 oil and gas fields. Despite the fact that last year President Putin alluded to a speedy resolution of all problems connected with this project, the committee for implementing production sharing agreements (PSA) annulled the results of a competition for the right to develop it on January 29, 2004. It is not inconceivable that Sakhalin-3 may be included in a comprehensive program to develop the oil and gas fields of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, which will be coordinated by Gazprom instead of Rosneft and Surgutneftegaz. It is interesting that at the same meeting the committee gave approval in general to a PSA project for the Prirazlomnoe oilfield (Arctic shelf of the Pechora Sea). The license holder is ZAO Sevmorneftegaz, formed by Gazprom and Rosneft on a parity basis.
The French company Total has also had no luck with PSA. Russia is refusing to approve the investor's costs for developing the Kharyaginskoe oil field (Nenets Autonomous Area) for 2001-2002. The French maintain that they spent nearly $146 million in 2001 and more than $178 million in 2002. Total has even appealed to the Stockholm Court of Arbitration, but the sitting in this case will not take place until next year.
Royal Dutch Shell did not wait for a PSA to develop the Salymskaya group of oilfields (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area), the license holder for which is Salym Petroleum Development and a joint venture between Shell and Evikhon. Shell decided to develop the field on terms of the national tax regulations – it will spend $200 million both this year and next on Salym.
To all appearances, the days of PSA in Russia are numbered. There remains a slight possibility of obtaining an agreement only by fulfilling two conditions: the project must be offshore, and the candidate company must be on friendly terms with Rosneft. Moreover, Rosneft will demand that its partners pay all exploration and drilling costs. As an example, this year it made such a demand on BP for fields in the Sakhalin-5 section – according to Vlast's information, this company's outlays should amount to $5 billion.
The History of the Baltic Pipeline System
In December 2001, in Primorsk (Leningrad Region) Vladimir Putin opened the first phase of the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS) – the largest export project in Russia in the entire post-Soviet period. This route was established so that oil exports to ports in Northwestern Europe would go through Russian ports rather than terminals in the Baltic countries (especially the Lithuanian port of Ventspils). The capacity of the first phase of the BPS was 12 million tons of oil per year; and after it reached 18 million tons, Transneft stopped exporting through Ventspils altogether. At present, 42 million tons of oil per year are being pumped through the BPS, and Transneft president Semen Vainshtok estimates that its capacity will increase to 60 million tons in 2006.
However, throughput capacity of Russian domestic pipelines is not keeping pace with the increase in export availability of the BTS. Transneft constantly uses this position in disputes with oil companies that are demanding to send part of the oil through Ventspils. The company needs to spend $143 million on widening the bottlenecks in its Russian system, and it would like the owners of the Ventspils oil terminal to provide the funds.
The BPS is also Transneft's main trump card in the dispute with a consortium of major oil companies that are pushing a project to build a pipeline from Western Siberia to Murmansk. This project appeared in 2002 and proposed the establishment of a new export route with a throughput capacity of 120 million tons of oil per year. Transneft believes it will be too expensive ($12 billion) and that it makes more sense to build a pipeline eastwards.
However, there is one problem here – where exactly will the eastern pipeline go? Transneft is proposing the Taishet-Nakhodka route. The company claims it can be built in four years at a cost of $10.75 billion. Japan is promising to provide most of this amount ($6 billion) in the form of low-interest loans. Japan's interest in the project is not accidental. The point is that there is an alternative route from Angarsk to the Chinese city of Daqing. YUKOS has been promoting this project since 1999, but Transneft has successfully blackballed it. The problem is, this pipeline is included in an intergovernmental agreement between Russia and China.
In order to calm the Chinese, Russia has promised that the pipeline to Nakhodka will include a branch line to Daqing. However, it is unlikely that this compromise option will ever be implemented. Despite constant increases in oil production in Russia, oil companies will not be able to pump the 80–100 million tons of oil eastwards that are needed to load both Far Eastern routes in four years. And a breach of international agreements will hardly improve relations between Russia and China.
The History of Development of the West
In recent years, Russian companies have been actively buying up refining and transportation facilities in Central and Eastern European countries. The largest oil refineries in neighboring Ukraine are shared among LUKOIL, TNK, and Tatneft; LUKOIL owns the Burgas oil refinery in Bulgaria and the Petrotel plant in Romania, while YUKOS owns 49% of the shares of the Slovakian pipeline company Transpetrol. The share of Russian oil capital in refineries in neighboring countries will probably increase in the future.
Russian companies are also interested in Western gas station chains. At the end of 2000, LUKOIL acquired the American company Getty Petroleum Marketing, which includes 1291 service stations in 13 Atlantic coast states, for about $60 billion (most of these operate as franchises). The company also owns ten petroleum storage depots. Nearly 4% of the gasoline sold in the United States is marketed under the Getty brand name, and the company is among the five largest traders.
LUKOIL made a similar acquisition in January of this year – the company announced the purchase of 795 service stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania from ConocoPhilips for $265.75 million. Today, LUKOIL services more than 2000 American gas stations, and annual fuel sales are around 12 billion liters. In the near future, LUKOIL will start repainting the acquired service stations (they operate under the Mobil logo) in its own colors.
YUKOS managed to implement another project that LUKOIL hatched in the mid-1990s, i.e., the acquisition of a controlling block of shares in the Lithuanian company Mazekiu Nafta (MN), which includes the Mazeikiai oil refinery, the only oil refinery in the Baltic countries. In June 2002, YUKOS became the owner of 53.7% of MN s shares and gained the status of operator of the company.
We note that not all Eastern European refiners have agreed to control by Russian oil companies. For example, the Poles did not allow LUKOIL to privatize the Gdansk oil refinery.
Nevertheless, what is taking place shows that Russian oil companies are quite healthy despite all the problems within the country, and have not only retained the potential to develop into transnational companies in the past four years, but have also advanced quite far along this track. The speed of this advancement will directly depend on oil prices and the future course of relations between the industry and the government.
&People Who Have Left the Scene
Mikhail Gutseriev
The departure of Mikhail Gutseriev was probably the most obviously arranged event in the oil and gas sector in the last four years. There were more serious dismissals, but no one could surpass the Caucasian-tinged Latin American passions around the head of Slavneft in May 2002. It is hard to say what played the key role in Gutseriev's dismissal – first, he stood in the way of Sibneft, which needed to get control over the company just before its privatization; second, he was involved in an intricate game between oligarchs Sergei Pugachev and Roman Abramovich; and third, he actively campaigned against the Kremlin in the elections in Ingushetia. But despite his obvious contempt for all political conventions, Gutseriev has not left the oil industry. He remains convinced that sooner or later his company Russneft will take the place of the Slavneft he lost.
Rem Vyakhirev
The question of whether Rem Vyakhirev would continue to head the largest company in Russia's fuel and energy complex was probably the main industry issue at the start of President Putin's first term in office. Since 1993, the gas sector had barely troubled the Russian government, not counting the occasional squabbles of Gazprom and RAO UES of Russia (RAO EES Rossii). Moreover, stability of the gas industry, personified by Vyakhirev, was very valuable – to this day, gas exports are one of the foundations of Russian statehood. Nevertheless, Vyakhirev surrendered surprisingly easily – the change of power took only a few weeks in May 2001. It was a while before it became clear how close Gazprom had come to the line beyond which loomed total bankruptcy of both the company and the industry as a whole: for the first two years, Vyakhirev's replacements devoted themselves almost entirely to eliminating the detrimental effects of Soviet stability.
Ralif Safin
Until the end of 2002, Ralif Safin was first vice president of LUKOIL responsible for foreign economic projects. No one really anticipated his departure from the company, but it happened. Safin preferred politics to LUKOIL and the oil business, although he has not been overly successful. He became a member of the Federation Council for the Altai Republic (Mountainous Altai) and ran for president of Bashkiria. There was talk that he had gone into politics in order to make Bashneft his oil company. But after losing the elections, Safin did not return to the oil business. However, he still maintains close business relations with LUKOIL and his return to the company cannot be ruled out, although this is hard to believe: Safin seems much more natural in the role of man of the world and second-rate politician than in the role of hired manager.
Andrey Vavilov
There were no rumors about why former deputy finance minister Andrey Vavilov and his business colleagues acquired the small oil company Northern Oil (Severnaya neft) before Vladimir Putin came to power – they had been buying and buying. Vavilov's exit from the oil business surprised many people. After investing several million dollars in the insignificant company, the partners sold it to state-owned Rosneft for $600 million in 2003. In between the two deals, Severnaya neft managed to quarrel with literally every Russian oil company, take the promising Val Gamburtseva field out from under their noses, and straighten out the business such that even large international players became interested in the company. This was without a doubt the finest exit from the business in the past four years.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
No one really believed that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, YUKOS's largest owner and president of the company's board, would resign and announce his final departure from the oil industry. But it happened – in October 2003, Khodorkovsky announced from Matrosskaya Tishina Prison that he did not have the right to jeopardize his company as a result of his personal political conflict with the government. One of the most attractive positions in the Russian fuel and energy complex became a pawn in the political conflict, although of such a scale that against its background the oil business looks like a detail.
&People Who Have Arrived on the Scene
Aleksey Miller
Aleksey Miller is one of the few major figures in the oil and gas business whom Vladimir Putin has personally recommended for his position. Despite the fact that until May 2001, he worked directly on one of the key state oil and gas projects – the Baltic Pipeline System – he had to earn his reputation in the general business environment at Gazprom itself. And he has succeeded in this: Miller's team was able to deal with Rem Vyakhirev's legacy and do much that its predecessors never thought of, from expanding into Central Asia to solving Gazprom's debt problems and increasing gas production in Russia.
Robert Dudley
Robert Dudley was theoretically in the Russian oil industry: as head of BP's CIS, Caspian, and African division he was also responsible for the company's Russian operations. But with the establishment of TNK-BP in March 2003, he became the first foreigner to head a Russian oil company. And although he still has to share actual management of the company with Viktor Vekselberg, everyone realizes that, strange as it may sound, Sir Robert is a full-fledged colleague of the Russian oil oligarchs.
Viktor Vekselberg
Viktor Vekselberg came to the oil business quite unexpectedly when he sold part of his stake in TNK to BP. At first it was assumed that the TNK-BP alliance was set up precisely so that TNK's Russian owners – Viktor Vekselberg, Mikhail Fridman from Alfa Group, and Leonard Blavatnik from Access – would gradually leave the oil industry. But whereas Fridman and Blavatnik acted according to this scenario, Vekselberg paradoxically became a public figure of TNK-BP and its actual co-manager.
Semen Kukes
Semen Kukes accomplished something almost impossible – he didn't arrive in the oil business but returned to it and returned after qualitatively changing his status. At TNK, Kukes occupied the position of hired senior executive of a de facto private company, but at YUKOS after Mikhail Khodorkovsky's departure in autumn 2003, he gradually mastered the job of hired senior executive of a public company, that is, a company where all shareholders have more or less equal rights. And although this was not actually so in the case of YUKOS, Kukes has had a certain amount of success in his new job: at least he was able to teach Russian society how to separate the principal shareholders and management, who are playing fundamentally different games at YUKOS.
http://www.kommersant.com/t474677/r_3/n_33/The_Oil_and_Gas_Industry_2000-2004/
fyi: Oil, gas transforming Russian Far East
Web posted Sunday, October 15, 2006
By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce
YUZHNO, Russia - This gritty city on the south end of Sakhalin Island, Russia's oil-rich province in its far east, shows the face of a modernizing Russia.
In the early morning, streets are busy with traffic and smartly dressed young women and men who stride purposefully to work in modern office buildings.
The city bustles with new construction, including - in what would amaze visitors to Russian cities just a few years ago - new subdivisions of single-family homes being built for Russians, not foreigners, on the city's outskirts.
There are still plenty of the old Soviet-era block apartment buildings, however, as well as older neighborhoods of log cabins and small wood houses, some which seem to date from czarist times. Many of the old homes have greenhouses and gardens, a sign that many Russian families, in a place with a cold climate and without Costcos and Safeways, must still grow a lot of their own food, as did many Americans not too long ago.
What is propelling Sakhalin's emerging prosperity is oil and gas. Big projects are being managed by joint ventures led by companies with names familiar in Alaska: Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Thousands of people are at work, earning fantastic wages by Russian standards.
The projects themselves face challenges. A $20 billion pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) project being run by Shell is 80 percent complete but is experiencing cost increases as well as environmental problems with pipeline construction. The project is on schedule to go into operation in 2008, officials with Sakhalin Energy Investment Corp., the consortium led by Shell, said in briefings held Sept. 27 in Yuzhno.
The cost escalation, from $12.5 billion to $20 billion, should be a sobering signal for Alaskans who are hoping to see a long-distance gas pipeline built or alternatively, a large LNG project. Shell's LNG project is approximately the size that has been proposed for Valdez by the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, a municipal group.
Shell's consortium isn't the only group to experience cost overruns. Exxon Mobil recently announced that its project will wind up costing $17 billion, up from an earlier estimation of $12.5 billion.
The Russian federal government and the Sakhalin regional governments are unhappy about the project cost increases, because under terms of the production sharing agreements negotiated with the companies, the governments must now wait longer before they get a large flow of revenues from the projects.
The Shell and Exxon groups have provided development funds for Sakhalin infrastructure that their projects will also use, but Sakhalin governor Ivan Malakhov says his region badly needs more money for schools, hospitals, roads and other public improvements, concerns with which Alaskans would sympathize.
Malakhov was in Alaska recently with a group of Russian Far East regional governors, during which he met Gov. Frank Murkowski and other state officials and toured parts of the state.
Alaskans are no strangers to Sakhalin. Alaska contractors and support companies have been on the scene since the 1990s, when Western oil and gas companies started working there.
Alaska firms have experience with ice and supporting remote operations in difficult climate conditions, capabilities that Exxon Mobil and Shell needed. Many managers with Exxon Mobil in Sakhalin, for example, have worked in Alaska and are familiar with the Alaskan companies.
In northern Sakhalin, where the oil fields are located, operating conditions are similar to the North Slope. The region is on the same latitude as France, but its climate is affected by severe winter cold coming down from eastern Siberia across the Sea of Okhotsk.
BP's project off northern coast of Sakhalin - conducted as a joint-venture with Rosneft, a Russian oil company - is still in the exploration phase, but BP also has Alaskans in senior positions, including Ray Jakubczak, the company's general director for BP Sakhalin.
Veco Corp., the Alaska oil field services company, has been active in construction support work for the Exxon Mobil-led Sakhalin 1 project and recently landed maintenance contracts with a Russian partner for both Sakhalin 1 and 2.
John Conway, a former Veco manager in Anchorage, is in charge of the company's operations in Russia overall. Other Alaskans now part of Veco's management team in Sakhalin include Dave Hopkinson, Kurt Stangl, Derek McGowan and Gerry Leipert.
Arctic Slope Energy Services, another Alaska oil service firm, has been previously active in project support work and now operates a fabrication plant in Yuzhno. Gary MacDonald, a former Arctic Slope Energy manager in Alaska, is now in charge of the Yuzhno plant.
Alaska Interstate Construction, another veteran Alaska oil field construction company, has been active in Sakhalin in the past and is now working to land new contracts there. Dave Gonzalez and Norm Stevens from AIC's Anchorage office were recently in Yuzhno working on potential projects.
Tim Bradner can be reached at tim.bradner@alaskajournal.com
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/101506/hom_20061015001.shtml
Russian oil production rises 2.4%, y-o-y, in Jan.-Aug. 2006
14:41 | 16/ 10/ 2006
MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's oil production has grown 2.4% in the first eight months of 2006, year-on-year, to 318 million metric tons (2.34 billion bbl), the Federal State Statistic Service said Monday.
Domestic sales rose 5.6%, to 143.7 million tons (1.06 billion bbl), while exports fell 0.3%, to 167.1 million tons (1.23 billion bbl).
Oil exports in the reporting period accounted for 35.6% of Russia's total exports, and 52.7% of its energy exports.
High world oil prices have contributed to a record windfall for the Russian economy, which is one of the world's leading oil and gas producers. In 2003, the World Bank reported that Russia's energy sector comprised 25% of the country's GDP.
Russia's real income has grown 29% annually since 2001, largely due to rising world oil prices, and its revenue surplus has allowed it to pay off debts to foreign creditors ahead of schedule.
TDameritrade gave me the first restriction I've ever had in my entire time trading with them, when I tried to buy CPPT online this morning. Strange.
Shell says oil price drop won't cut energy projects
Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:52pm ET
WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Shell Oil Co. has no plans to cut back on its investments in energy exploration projects because of the steep drop in crude oil prices, the company's president said on Monday.
The price for U.S. oil traded at the New York Mercantile Exchange has fallen from just over $78 a barrel in mid-July to around $59 on Monday.
John Hofmeister, the president of Shell Oil, which is the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research), said his company would continue with its planned energy projects, including expensive drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, even if the oil price fell to half the current level.
"Between, $20 and $40 we're robust, and so we wouldn't need to rethink (our investments) now," Hofmeister told reporters on the sidelines of the American Petroleum Institute's annual meeting.
"We're always looking at these (oil prices). And we may make changes in priorities, but at this point we're full steam ahead. We're looking forward to next year," Hofmeister said.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
I bought this off of Scottrade w/o any problems. Did not have to call the order in.
coolwhip, no Scottrade
So you have TD Ameritrade and was able to buy by calling the order in?
coolwhipwhen my cash builds again I'll be doing the same thing.
They've done it to me many times and the stocks went up. I'm still looking to find another broker and probably will soon.
coolwhip, looks like any stock that starts to make a move MM's tell Brokers to put that stock on Restriction. It seems every stock I start to buy has Restrictions on it. It screws the Investors and makes them call in to buy, which Investors don't like to call in.
CPPT is another one that TD Ameritrade has as restricted and only allows sell orders on it. That's a good sign; it should do well. GLTA
This is nice news. I'm surprised it is not moving the stock today
CPPT DD: Miners race to exploit Namibia's off-shore diamonds
By: Rodrick Mukumbira
Posted: '14-SEP-06 11:00' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006
WINDHOEK (Mineweb.com) --A raft of new diamond exploration projects are beginning in Namibia, as the focus shifts from land to marine reserves. This week alone, two international companies have reported stepping up prospecting projects in Namibia’s off-shore territory.
Diamonds are the lifeline of the Namibian economy, contributing over 70 percent to the country’s GDP. But earlier this year, Namdeb - a 50-50 joint venture between the Namibian government and DeBeers Group - voiced concern over the declining land diamond reserves.
Since then, its interim results for the year ended 30 June 2006 revealed a shift to a near match in production for marine mining activities and land based operations. Its marine mines accounted for 537,000 carats, while land based operations produced 544,000 carats.
Namdeb managing director Inge Zaamwani said her company was pumping US$125 million into in-shore and off-shore diamond mining activities, and predicted that marine diamond mining activities would by-pass land mining in 2009, due to an “aging process” underway in land-based mines.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Namterra Mineral Resources (Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of Terra Insight Corporation, said that it had received a sixth exclusive licence to use satellite-based technology to explore for diamonds in an area covering approximately 247,000 acres of off-shore territory.
Afri-Can Marine Minerals Corp, a Canadian company listed on the TSX, followed suit on Tuesday announcing that it will commence the first phase of exploring Block J in Namibia’s south-western coast for diamonds on October 8.
This phase, which consists of a geophysical survey of an area totalling approximately 1,200 line-kilometres and an extraction of at least 25 vibro-core samples measuring 100 millimetres in diameter, will last for about 25 days, said a statement from the company on Wednesday.
It will be undertaken by International Mining and Dredging Holding Ltd (IMD), an international marine mining contractor with state-of-the-art geophysical survey and sampling equipment. IMD’s parent company Argo SRL owns several marine exploration and mining vessels that have been successfully operating diamond mining projects in Namibian territorial waters for over six years.
The statement said the survey and vibro-core sampling will focus specifically on target areas called Features 6 and 8 in areas lying between the mining town of Luderitz and South Africa, both of which proved to contain diamonds in the two previous reconnaissance sampling programmes the company undertook.
“Feature 6 forms a known aeolian-fluvial diamondiferous deposit covering approximately 4.1 sq. Km, and is structurally similar to known deposits in the Luderitz area in Namibia where an historical inferred resource of 4.1 million carats of diamonds has been estimated. Feature 8 consists of known diamondiferous gravel waves and lag gravel deposits covering approximately 11.2 sq. Km. Feature 8 is structurally similar to a known deposit at the mouth of the Orange River area in Namibian waters, where Namdeb is producing in excess of 900,000 carats annually,” said the statement.
If the first phase results are satisfactory, a second phase will begin almsot immediately to take 319 large samples, each of 10 square metres.
http://www.mineweb.net/gems/170220.htm
CPPT DD: 4/06 ~ Turkish Çalik Enerji signs partnership agreement with US company for oil&gas exploration
New York City based US company, CompuPrint, Inc. CPPT -an energy technology company that combines satellite-based technology with traditional exploration services, announced that Terra Insight Corporation (TIC), its wholly-owned operating company, signed an agreement with the Çalik Enerji, a leading Turkish energy company with holdings throughout the Middle East, to jointly explore eight onshore blocks in the Erzurum area of eastern Turkey.
Previously, this highly desirable area had been restricted because of Turkish military activities. Pursuant to the agreement between TIC and Çalik Enerji, Terra Insight Corporation will utilize its proprietary satellite-based STeP technology to identify hydrocarbon exploration targets. TIC is to receive payment for the survey as well as a 20% working interest in the project. Çalik Enerji is owned by Çalik Holding, an international billion dollar entity that is engaged in the businesses of textiles, energy, construction, financial services and trade.
"We are pleased that Çalik has recognized the potential of our STeP technology," said Roman Rozenberg, Chief Executive Officer. "With energy prices near record levels, companies are increasingly seeking to identify additional drilling opportunities. Our technology allows for the cost-effective exploration of energy properties in ways that have never been done before, identifying the parcels that are most likely to result in successful exploration results." CompuPrint, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary, Terra Insight Corporation, provides mapping, surveying, and analytical services to exploration, drilling, and mining companies.
The company primarily uses the STeP technology, which facilitates the prediction and location of commercially viable deposits of hydrocarbons, gold, diamonds, and other natural resources. It manages and interprets geologic and satellite data to develop the assessment of natural resources.
The company also owns leases for oil and gas parcels totaling approximately 14,000 acres of land in the Rail Road Valley and White River Valley areas of Nevada for purposes of utilizing its STeP technology in oil and gas exploration and development activities. CompuPrint was formed in 2005 and is based in New York City.
http://www.thenewanatolian.com/print-4987.html
CPPT DD: Namterra drives harder into Namibian offshore gems prospecting
By: Rodrick Mukumbira
Posted: '12-SEP-06 11:00' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006
http://www.mineweb.net/gems/162041.htm
WINDHOEK (Mineweb.com) --The Namibian government this week awarded local company Namterra Mineral Resources, a sixth exclusive license to prospect for precious stones off the country’s coast.
The announcement on Monday comes two months after the company received five exclusive licences to prospect in more than 1,000 square kilometres of off-shore territory.
The new license expires in July 2009 and covers approximately 247,000 acres of off-shore territory, bringing the total area to more than 1.2 million acres for all six licenses now granted to Namterra.
Namterra is the Namibian subsidiary of Terra Insight Corporation, itself a wholly owned operating subsidiary of CompuPrint, an energy technology company that combines satellite-based technology with traditional exploration services.
No comment could be obtained from Erasmus Shivoro, the mining commissioner in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, but a statement from CompuPrint welcomed the sixth licence.
"This is an exciting opportunity for us, as we expand our thrust to natural resources in Africa, in addition to our current oil and gas projects in the United States and Turkey, and it is consistent with our business model of obtaining ownership interests in order to capitalise on the use of our STeP(TM) technology in exploration projects," said Roman Rozenberg, Chief Executive Officer of CompuPrint in a statement.
He added: “To develop the properties underlying these licenses, we plan to deploy STeP(TM) for the exploration of natural resources other than oil and gas activities. The technology has previously been used successfully in prospecting for diamonds. Using STeP(TM), we plan to reconstruct a modelling of the historic shoreline, the paleoriver flows, and thereby identify the eroded kimberlite pipes to predict the potential off-shore traps for alluvial diamonds. We expect to expand our diamond and other minerals prospecting projects this year.”
CompuPrint, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Terra Insight Corporation, provides mapping, surveying, and analytical services to exploration, drilling, and mining companies.
It primarily uses the STeP(TM) technology, which facilitates the prediction and location of commercially viable deposits of hydrocarbons, gold, diamonds, and other natural resources.
The technology manages and interprets geologic and satellite data to develop the assessment of natural resources.
The Company also has a 20 percent working interest in 1,000,000 acres in leases for oil exploration in Eastern Turkey, and a 6 percent working interest in a diamond exploration project on more than 1,000 square kilometres in Republic of Congo.
CPPT's CEO Russian Energy Experience:
(Roman Rozenberg is now CEO of Terra Insight)
Geotec/TelcoEnergy Concludes Acquisition of 51% Volgageoresource
Thursday April 22, 10:16 am ET
BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 2004--Geotec Thermal Generators Inc./TelcoEnergy Corporation (OTCBB:GETC - News) announced that the Company exercised its option to acquire 51% of Volgageoresource, which was awarded five permits to explore 5 hydrocarbon structures in the Saratov Region (on 1,037,820 acres or 420 sq. km). Concurrent with the third party to the Agreement, the Institute of Geoinformational Analysis, indications of potential reserves are in excess of 100 million tons, or approximately 700 million barrels.
Mr. Roman Rozenberg, TelcoEnergy's Managing Director of Russian Operations, stated that, "the structures are located in the same geological basin as another US majority owned company called Stimul, which only has a small amount of oil and gas production, but as quoted by Business daily Vedomosti has 'significant reserves of around 100 million tones of hydrocarbons.' Stimul is owned by the U.S. Getty family and Russia's Gazprom. Saratov was one of the first prolific oil producing regions in Russia and therefore has an extensive oil infrastructure of pipelines, railways, and barging."
Vladimir Tichonovich Zukov, Academician and long standing member of the Russian Academy of Science stated, "the geological structures and formations of Volgageoresource properties hold a very large potential of recovery especially from the undeveloped deeper Devonian zone that was not produced by previous exploration conducted primarily in the Saratov region""
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040422/225553_1.html
[/quote]
CPPT...it's Greeaaaatttttt!
Thanks Momo! I actually think this is one that could buy Ms December a New Bike, if you know what I mean...
Followers
|
16
|
Posters
|
|
Posts (Today)
|
0
|
Posts (Total)
|
714
|
Created
|
10/13/06
|
Type
|
Free
|
Moderators |
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |