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Oil in them thar seas
Nephew Wilde
It sometimes pays to keep quiet about one's whereabouts. I knew one chap, for instance, with a cloak-anddagger type imagination, who always left the last digit off any telephone number he gave — a ploy that could always be mistaken for a careless slip. This lesson in being secretive came home to me last week when I told my stockbroker, Wotherspool, that I would be in Scotland for a few days. Immediately he implored me to keep my ears and eyes open for any celevant news about the North Sea oil and gas industry. For lack of any better way to occupy myself in those barren Highland wastes I took the Opportunity to do some detective work on Wotherspool's behalf. First I drove north to Aberdeen, the capital of the North Sea oil industry. Then I thumbed through the yellow pages of a telephone directory hoping for some clue about activities in the region that might benefit from the boom. After all, should the forecasts be correct, the effect of oil on the country would be absolutely colossal. But what did I find but pages of farmers and fishermen? I know that the latter are engaged to some extent with the industry as there is always one fishing boat circling a rig, presumably in case anyone falls overboard. But to my knowledge no public company is engaged in this business.
As I was running short of ideas I decided to speak to an industrialist I knew in Glasgow. He sensed that I felt every Scottish company should be able to cash in on the boom and in rather a dour tone commented, "If someone leaves a baby on your doorstep, would you open an orphanage?"
I certainly seemed to have come to a dead end, when suddenly my spirits were bucked by the incongruous sight in the middle of Dundee of a Texan with cowboy boots and trimmings. I trailed him like a hawk and finally caught up with him at a pub called the Divers Bar. There was no doubt about it, this was the oil men's hideaway. On the walls were scenes of the rigs themselves. Now I felt close to the real thing. Soon I was in conversation with an actual rig worker who explained the system whereby one spent a week on the rig with about twenty-five others and worked on this teetotal raft buffeted by the elements and then had a week ashore to enjoy the fruits (wage packets of about £100 a week) of one's labours. The men who found themselves here were from all over the world.
When it came down to beneficiaries of the boom, however, I still ran into difficulties. Most of the equipment is brought in from abroad, including the pipes from Japan and tons of goods from the US. But my spirits were raised when I spoke to one diver who let slip that they always used Siebe Gorman undermater products. Siebe Gorman I knew was a public company with an excellent reputation for its diving gear which dates back to the early days of the industry. As well as doing work for the Royal Navy and other navies and police forces throughout the world it has long been engaged in making diving equipment for commercial uses. The North Sea seems bound to provide another useful and growing outlet for Siebe Gorman. This at least is what I told Wotherspool as well as giving him an order to buy 620 shares.
In order to finance this purchase I am reluctantly selling my entire holding in Brown Bayley.
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