ENERGY DOT.COMS are falling by the wayside, victims of their own inability to define the marketplace and the product. WorldOil.com has folded its e-commerce procurement tent while E-rig has shut down completely. Several others are to follow soon. For those left, the immediate problem is not profitability but survival. Those a bit farther from the brink are now engaged in rounds of mergers, seeking for the most part to limit their exposure to market forces currently turned sour on e-commerce ventures and to align themselves with oil companies now bent on defining the future of upstream e-commerce themselves.
A kiss of life for those dot.coms
Many start-ups are drowning but the oil companies have thrown the sector a lifeline by forging alliances with the best of the B2B bunch in pursuit of undoubted savings offered by the 'new economy'
1 September 2000 0:00 GMT
Updated
1 September 2000 0:00 GMT