Even if others are keen on a field, however huge, in pristine jungle nearly 500 kilometres and a mountain range from the populated coast, new bids would take time: Perupetro, the state oil firm, says it would take the rest of 1998 to prepare bidding specifications, under the government's new plan to divide the deal into three: operation of the field, the main pipelines, and distribution.

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Even against this backdrop, the Alvord is extraordinarily dry, sitting in a triple rain shadow created by the Coast Range, the Cascades and Steens Mountain.

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Dagestan adjoins Chechnya, lies at the eastern extremity of the Caucasus mountain range, and the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, sits on the Caspian coast.

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