Mr. Plank: We've been around 47 years. Our Founder, Raymond Plank, is still here as Chairman. We have a great team of people and we have grown considerably over that period of time. More recently, we've gone through a considerable growth spurt because of international endeavors, typically long term in nature, that have come online. We are seeing the fruits of an international investment strategy that began more than 10 years ago. We've built our base considerably since the downturn of 1998 and 1999. When others were sitting on the sidelines, we had the financial capacity to make over 3 billion of acquisitions, which has left us with the strongest production and financial results that we've ever had. So at an uncertain time for many companies, we are very fortunate that Apache is in excellent financial shape. Over the years we've found opportunity in adversity, and I expect that we'll continue to do that. While we have not been active on the acquisition front for more than a year, we have been growing internally. We expect to exit 2002 with higher production capacity than we started the year.
TWST: Could you explain the business philosophy that has enabled
you to do this?
Mr. Plank: It's hard to put your finger exactly on culture, but I
think a couple of things have served us well over time. I think
if you were to talk to people who have known Apache over the
years, they would tell you that we've always been straight
shooters. We don't gild the lily. I think that candor over time
has paid off; we don't run from problems, we identify them and
try to deal with them. Another thing that has really served us
well over five decades now is we have seen the worst time and
again. So we assume the worst, plan for the worst, and hope for
better; that has helped us through downturns that are inevitable
in any business, but particularly in a cyclical commodity
business. It has helped us to survive and provided the financial
capacity when things are at the bottom, which is when you can
make the most progress by planting the seeds for the future. We
have been contrarian. Again, 1998 and 1999 was the last
meaningful downturn in the oil and gas business; oil was
approaching 10 a barrel and gas was well below 2 per thousand
cubic feet (Mcf). Because we had some financial capacity and we
hadn't gotten carried away in the upturn of 1997, we were able to
complete a series of transactions that have left us in a great
position today, with oil and gas prices considerably better than
what they were then. So being contrarian, having financial
capacity, always trying to properly assess what your downside
could be and knowing that things will change ' all these things
have served us well.
Tickers included in this excerpt: APA
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