October Men

Faith Audley said: 'He got out just before Colonel Gaddafi's coup?'

'Not just before, my dear. Well before would be more accurate, eh Howard?'

'He pulled out sure enough. But that isn't what I meant by the future—I think Gaddafi was as much of a surprise to him as it was to everyone else—'

David Audley said: 'Not to me it wasn't.'

'Okay—not to you, David. But he didn't have you on his payroll. What I mean is that he got out of Libya because he wanted his ready money for something else.'

'The North Sea.'

'Right—you're on the button, David. The North Sea . . .

which is a long, long way from the sands of the desert, I can tell you.'

Faith Audley said: 'I didn't know there were any Italian companies drilling in the North Sea.'

'There aren't. Narva didn't go into the exploitation business, he went into the equipment side. He pulled me out of the desert because I cut my teeth on offshore work, I suppose, and I knew roughly what he wanted.'

'And what did he want?'

'A middle-man's finger in all the pies that were going—rigs—

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he ordered two of them straight off—and all the paraphernalia that went with 'em. And manpower too—he put all the best men he could lay his hands on under the longest contracts they'd put their crosses on. Technical whizz kids, divers, the lot. What he could get he got. I know, because I spent his money like water.'

'And there's profit in this?'

'Faith honey, that's where the money is at the moment. Or where it's going, anyway. You only have to compare the development and production costs. ... I guess it takes a production investment of $100 per barrel a day in the Middle East. But in the North Sea it's going to work out at anything from twenty to seventy times as much — it takes a million pounds just for one exploration well, and that's if the weather's nice and kind. Which it darn well isn't most of the times I've seen it.'

Deacon said: 'What you're saying, Howard, is that at the moment more money is going into the North Sea than is coming out of it. But that's common knowledge—everyone knew it was going to be a devil to develop. If it wasn't for the political stability of the area compared with the Middle East there'd be a good deal less enthusiasm than there is now, I tell you.'

'Sure—everyone knew it was going to be tough. What they didn't know was whether it'ud be profitable.'

'Oil exploration's always a gamble. But ever since the Groningen strike—'

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'That's just it: Groningen was a gas field, apart from being safe on land. That's where most of the hopes were—in the gas.'

'But they knew oil could be there.'

'Hell, of course they did. The gas comes from the carboniferous layers under the sandstone in the Permian rock

—sorry, Faith, I'm going technological now, damn it, aren't I!'

'Geological, anyway. But do carry on, Ian. We're all fascinated.'

'So says every good hostess! But I will go on all the same.

You see, you do get oil in the older carboniferous layers onshore, but precious little of it, and drilling in the southern sector early on seemed to bear that out—in the end there was plenty of gas, but precious little oil.'

'But they went on looking for it all the same.'

'That's because they're oilmen. A good oilman's rather like a gold miner—the next hole's bound to be the end of the rainbow, he always thinks. And yet look at the timing: Groningen was in '58. It wasn't until '65 that Phillips and Shell-Esso and one or two others got the courage to take out licences in Scottish waters.

'Then Phillips found the Cod condensate field in the Norwegian sector in '68. But even that only proved there were hydrocarbon reservoirs—it didn't ring the till commercially. There were some damn cold feet about before dummy2

that, I can tell you. It was only when Phillips brought in Ekofisk and Xenophon found the Freya field, that the balloon went up. And then it really went up. But that was only a year or so ago, remember.'

Audley said: 'But just what has this to do with Eugenio Narva's being able to see into the future?'

'Timing, David—it's all in the timing. Groningen in '58, just a smell of it in '68 at Cod and bingo at Ekofisk and Freya in

'70. But I was buying for Narva in a big way before Cod.'

'So he made a good guess. He's a shrewd fellow.'

'David, it wasn't a guess. He knew.'

Deacon said: 'But on your own evidence he couldn't have known. He could only have gambled.'

'I tell you—he knew. He was making a bomb in Libya and he pulled out and made another bomb in the North Sea.'

Deacon said: 'Let's get this straight, Ian—stop being oracular for a moment. You know he wasn't gambling because you asked him and he told you.'