Enron Mail

From:vince.kaminski@enron.com
To:rick.buy@enron.com
Subject:Re: Exmar Purchase Decision
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Mon, 31 Dec 1979 16:00:00 -0800 (PST)

Rick,

It would be difficult to use option approach to directly to ships (no
historical price series
and no regular, continuos markets). The right approach is th real options
model that
requiresa lot of time to develop.





From: Rick Buy
05/22/2000 01:35 PM





To: Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT, Ted Murphy/HOU/ECT@ECT, David
Gorte/HOU/ECT@ECT, Vladimir Gorny/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Exmar Purchase Decision

fyi
---------------------- Forwarded by Rick Buy/HOU/ECT on 05/22/2000 01:34 PM
---------------------------


John Sherriff
05/22/2000 01:21 PM
To: Rick Buy/HOU/ECT@ECT, Joe Gold/LON/ECT@ECT, David
Haug/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT, Doug
Rotenberg/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT, Rick
Bergsieker/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT, Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Exmar Purchase Decision


I just got off the phone with Jeff Skilling to make my pitch for doing the
Exmar deal. He said that he generally understands the logic of the deal but
simply
wants the risk management discipine applied to analzing the position (a
reiteration of what Rick Buy had said in our meeting today). I would simply
ask Vince's team to take a quick look tommorow at valuing the ships as stand
alone positions with a guess at the volatility based on historical price
movements. This would
be much easier than the Rainbow option approach and would allow us to roughly
look at the value of the options on the other two ships. In other words we
could look at two ship long positions with some implied volatilities and
also estimate daily VARs on the ships as if they were mark to market
(although I agree with David that we will not likely be able to mark the
ships because they will be treated as leases).

John


John
---------------------- Forwarded by John Sherriff/LON/ECT on 22/05/2000 19:05
---------------------------


Joe Gold
22/05/2000 18:58
To: John Sherriff/LON/ECT@ECT
cc:

Subject: Exmar Purchase Decision


John,

After spending a few minutes with our shipping experts in the coal and oil
groups, I have a slightly different angle on the Exmar LNG vessel decision.
I would ideally like to spend the time to analyse this purchase as we do
power and gas positions. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury and
sometimes, in absence of true analytics, the most rudimentary measures can
provide the best decision tools. Here is how we would make the decision:

1) Our shipping expert confirms that $140 million for a 135,000 ton ship
represents a good price relative to new build costs over the last three years
and that quotes have been trending up past that number recently. He also
confirms that the current trough is the result of the default of several Far
East buyers and that new LNG orders and other ship building (cruise liners)
have reduced the over capacity. His experience and historic analysis has
suggested that the pricing cycle for LNG ships lasts for a significant
period. New efficiency measures should reduce new build prices (and allow
for a lower trough), but not by an extreme amount versus the $140 million
cost of this vessel.

Pierre normally likes to roll time charters; however, this is difficult in an
illiquid shipping market like LNG. He would purchase this ship if the LNG
shipping book were his to manage. He estimates the ship could be sold in a
distressed sale for $110 million and could be potentially time chartered on a
long term basis at a value of up to $200 million.

2) Our development teams in Spain, Italy and Turkey have been trying to
solve the big question - gas. In each country, the key to developing a
merchant plant is securing gas flexibility or at least securing negotiating
leverage with the monopoly gas supplier. It is questionable whether or not
this decision will have an immediate impact on Arcos. The plant's time line
and the realities of the LNG supply market may require that we commit to Gas
Natural before any source of 3 to 5 year gas can be secured. The shear
threat of being able to bring spot or term LNG to these markets will improve
our negotiating leverage and/or allow us to create flexibility. Going
forward, however, other potential plant opportunities in Spain, and elsewhere
in the Med region, may have the capacity to utilise these vessels. I think
that this flexibility is worth at least $25 million to me.

3) I would summarise: Upside $60 + $25 = $85 million
Downside ($30) + $25 = ($5) million

I would do it.

I will leave the rest to you.

Joe