Reuters gives clients inside track on Falklands drill

Shares in Falklands-focused oil companies Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper reversed direction on Feb 17 after Reuters revealed that drilling would go ahead despite an Argentine government edict that had made investors jittery. Shares in Desire, which had been trading down 3.5 percent ahead of the Reuters headline that day pared their losses to trade higher and then climbed much further over subsequent days. Shares in fellow explorer Rockhopper, which had been down 4 percent, also rose and then kept going as drilling on the first oil well in the Falkland Islands in over a decade on Feb. 22. Reuters was the first news organization to join the dots, getting a categorical denial from the main contractor, Desire Petroleum, that the ruling issued by the Argentine government on Jan 16 would affect its drill plans.