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Barnwell earnings
increase sevenfold

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Higher prices for oil and natural gas lifted fiscal third-quarter earnings at Barnwell Industries Inc. to more than seven times what they were in the 1999 quarter.

For the three months through June 30, the Honolulu-based oil and gas exploration company reported a profit of $720,000, or 53 cents a share, compared with $100,000, or 8 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Revenues of $5.2 million in the latest quarter were up 40.5 percent from $3.7 million in the 1999 third quarter.

The company's thinly traded shares closed up $1 at $16 today on the American Stock Exchange.

The company said its improved performance were due entirely to the oil and gas business, which the company does mostly in Canada, said Morton H. Kinzler, chairman and chief executive officer.

While the company is a partner in Kaupulehu Developments, a resort and residential development project in Kona, it did not report any income from that source for the latest quarter.

In its fiscal second quarter, which ended March 31, Barnwell had pre-tax earnings of $3.2 million as its share of a joint-venture profit when a company exercised an option to take on the development of some land within the Four Seasons Resort at Hualalai.

That helped bring the profit for the first nine months of the company's fiscal year to $3.9 million, or $2.98 a shares, compared with a profit of $180,000, or 14 cents a share, in the year-earlier nine months.

Nine-months revenues totaled $20.9 million this year, up 111 percent from $9.9 million last year.

Kinzler said land development opportunities on the Kona Coast are attracting strong interest.