Archive for May, 2008

Gazprom Explores Southeast Asia

Reuters recently reported that Gazprom signed a deal with Vietnam’s state-owned energy company, Petrovietnam, to explore four new offshore fields. Gazprom says that their joint venture company VietGazprom, which has been exploring a Vietnamese offshore deposit since 2000, will operate the new fields. As Robert Amsterdam points out, this is just the latest example in […]

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A New Look at Gazprom

Via The New York Times, an in-depth look at Gazprom.  As the article notes: “…It’s hard to overemphasize Gazprom’s role in the Russian economy. It’s a sprawling company that raked in $91 billion last year; it employs 432,000 people, pays taxes equal to 20 percent of the Russian budget and has subsidiaries in industries as […]

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Private Equity into Iraq: A New Definition of Risk Management?

Via Reuters, a recent report that influential emerging markets fund manager Mark Mobius said on Friday that he was in talks for private equity investments in Iraq.  As noted in the article: “We are looking at private equity in Iraq and are meeting with representatives in Iraq. There are smaller companies in manufacturing, the services […]

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Iran as a Counter Balance to Gazprom’s Energy Power

Robert Amsterdam (one of our favorite blogger analysts) recently offered interesting insight into the geopolitical importance of Iran in terms of EU energy security vis-à-vis Gazprom’s dominant position, and why Iran can be considered as a Gazprom monopoly “killer”.  As the article notes, this may have impacted Russia’s actions during the major powers’ recent meeting […]

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Frontier Investing

While we’ve been following this topic for some time, popular financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn recently noted that investing in emerging markets isn’t optional anymore. Globalization means that countries once thought of as marginal are central to any smart investment plan.  As the article states: “…Who’s on the frontier? Ukraine, Cyprus, Estonia, Kuwait, the United […]

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Gazprom, Libya, and Possibility of a Gas OPEC

Via Robert Amsterdam, a very insightful look into recent activities by Gazprom, Libya, and possibility of a Gas OPEC.  While some analysts have been skeptical about a possible gas cartel given the regional markets aspect of natural gas (which means that prices on the spot market could never be manipulated by production quotas as they […]

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ABOUT
WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.