qtr ann oyt, page-21

That's only the way people looking through rose coloured glasses are likely to see it. It might be true and along with all holders I really hope it is, but let's be realistic. That production figure is terrible, no matter how you dress it up. The decline in production rate looks really bad.

People are not going to be inspired to buy into a company which claims brilliant ability to extract oil, has massive reserves and has had a declining production rate for this long. Loyal shareholders may hold, some will sell, the only reason to buy is bargain hunting. The bargain hunters may get some great deals. Let's face it, the news at least looks very very bad, and in the short term, to the share price, that's all that matters. Even if the board has acted in the fundamentally best interests of the company, I think they have done the wrong thing and mismanaged the situation. Fundamentals are important, but allowing things to look this bad is very damaging. I know it's easy to be an armchair expert and I acknowledge I may be more sympathetic if I was a fly on their wall, but that's certainly how it looks from my armchair, and no doubt all the other armchairs out there not filled by loyal shareholders.