It has finally come to this, fellow peakoilers, a weekend assignment. I came across this interesting students’ project from PBS’ Nightly Business Report. Here’s an excerpt from the background information provided:

The persistence of high energy prices has helped many companies involved in exploration for new oil and natural gas supplies … Among these are two Singapore corporations: Keppel and Sembcorp Marine Ltd. Both have long been two of the best known names in global oil rig production, accounting for roughly 80% of the global market for offshore oil rigs. Both of those companies started out as shipyards. After switching to building oil rigs, they suffered when energy prices collapsed during the 1980s. But they managed to survive even after their American and European competitors went out of business. Realizing that the market for oil rig building and repairs would eventually rebound, the Singapore government (which owns a stake in both companies) continued to fund the two firms’ activities—and the bet paid off. Their orders went through the roof over the past few years, totaling over $7.6 billion (US) in 2005.

Wow, an impressive bet by our government that paid off well to Singapore! And the assignment gets interesting …

Although Singapore lacks large amounts of oil and gas resources, the two firms have begun to find and create their own petroleum sources in nearby countries such as Brazil, West Africa, Vietnam and Cambodia. Sembcorp is Singapore’s first importer and retailer of natural gas. It also owns and operates various steam and electric power plants across Asia and in Perth, Australia.

The site then provides a list of resources that will help students (the project is targeted at students in the 10-12 grades) work starting from this bit of information with the eventual aim to expand their knowledge of Asia and what drives it’s economy.

For me, the juxtaposition of several keywords – oil and gas, oil rigs, owns and operates power plants – seem to tell me that perhaps both our GLCs (government-link companies) are not purely reacting to market demands but somehow or rather working on some well-thought-out strategy to address the energy security issues for our small country.

So, guys, let’s pick off from where PBS left off and try and understand this, … well, unless of course some Keppel or Sembcorp employee could come right upfront and tell us that they are in fact purely reacting to market demands and we can just stop right now and enjoy our weekends some other way.