Oil companies and associations continue to place home pages on the Internet's World Wide Web.
The American Petroleum Institute, Amoco, and Conoco recently established pages. Coming soon are the American Gas Association, Petroleum Marketers Association of America, and National Petroleum Refiners Association.
Advocacy groups also are beginning to use the Internet to battle over issues pending in Congress.
For months, congressmen have debated whether to offer the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for exploration. Now the debate also is raging on the Internet.
Leasing proponents have a slick page, Http://www.anwr.com, that offers a full range of background information, including statements from Alaskan politicians.
The Northern Alaska Environmental Coalition has a polished site, Http://www.igc.apc.org/refuge, arguing against leasing. Singer John Denver also has a site opposing exploration, and the Interior Department's site gives Sec. Bruce Babbitt's arguments against it.
Independents' page
Meanwhile, a small oil advocacy group, Independents for Co-ops, has harnessed the Internet to promote a bill that would help small producers aggregate and sell gas.
Deborah Siegfried, an Apache Corp. spokeswoman, established the page, Http://www.gas-coop.com, about 3 weeks ago.
Seigfried said the inexpensive program has been a great success and is getting about 60 "hits"/day.
"We've had nothing but positive reactions," she said. "This seems to be the perfect medium for communicating information about an issue and keeping people up to date on it."
The page explains the need for legislation. It has background data on independent producers and a primer on the legislative process. It even has legislators' addresses and a sample letter that producers can download and send their congressmen.
The page has links to a federal site that monitors legislation, so a bill's status can be determined at any time.
And it encourages browsers to join an E-mail list so they can be kept informed about the issue. That list currently has 1,100 names.
Seigfried said the home page is generating responses in three ways: requests to be added to that E-mail list, E-mail asking questions, and calls on a toll free telephone number.
Reduced costs
Seigfried also said, "There always will be people who like information on paper and need to be able to hold it in their hands and file it away. But there also is a huge audience out there that is inclined to get information off the computer.
"If we sent out as much information on paper as our home page contains, the mailing would be an inch thick, and the cost would be prohibitive. But anyone who wants this data can download it from our page and print it out.
"Next we plan to put a full presentation on the Internet, with color pictures and graphics, that is downloadable. To mail out hundreds of color presentations like that would be utterly prohibitive for us."
Copyright 1996 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
