Mr. Seegmiller: As you may or may not know, Cabot Oil & Gas is focused more on the natural gas segment of the energy business, and from our standpoint, we see a business environment characterized by a .4 very stable and maybe even a decrease in supply over the next few years, as well as a continuing increase in demand for natural gas. I personally feel that this will lead to more consolidations of the independent E&P companies. We've seen a little bit of this already with the bigger integrated oil and gas firms. Consolidation obviously provides the benefit of efficiencies of scale, in other words, a better cost structure, and the opportunity to enter into higher risk plays. It just gives you a lot more opportunities and I think you'll need that advantage in the future. Secondly, I think technology is going to continue to play a bigger role as we see additional technology enhancements in various areas. In the higher risk plays, obviously you need the best technology available to maintain your cost structure to keep your success rate up, etc. So I think it's going to be an exciting time. I think the smaller players are going to have a harder time staying in the hunt.
TWST: What will be Cabot Oil & Gas' response to these developments? What
plans or strategies are you putting into place to deal with these
issues?
Tickers included in this excerpt: COG
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