The industry response to the current lack of an oil supply cushion and the long-term need to increase supplies of natural gas is underway, but is still far from reaching a peak,

It tends to indicate these Earth-mass planets are quite common, 10 to 50 times more common than previously believed.

For a long time, we've worked on detecting planets with whatever was at hand, making use of existing small telescopes or even amateur telescopes. It's time to move on to the next stage.

There are really no other methods at present that can detect planets of this mass and at this separation.

(Producers') plans have already been put in place to achieve this, but it will take several years of sustained activity to develop the new production that can reliably replace today's supply.

Initial discussions with customers would indicate that the exploration and production spending environment is likely to remain strong and probably significantly strengthen in 2006,