someone else is hurting, page-18

ERM are in the midst of a $1bn play for the MacGen assets in NSW so I would think they have their hands pretty much full atm. And with a lot of this money to come from debt you would think there would be little capital to be deployed in say a takeover of MEL. Even at such low prices we havent seen evidence of further buying by ERM.

A big issue from their board spill over at Empire Oil was the accusation that ERM was attmpeting to take over the company through the spill motion.

If indeed the long term strategy is to amalgamate MEL's NSW assets to their WA gas assets and to then spin off the gas exploration parts as a seperate company to the generation side (and allowing them to pay down some debts) then presumably one would not want to implement a board spill right now and show ones hand.

From MEL's perspective the best strategy obviously is to then get the share price moving by drilling and getting the reserves increasing particularly with "the biggest conventional gas" find in NSW. Our conventional gas reserves are zero right now.

If a takeover is to come and ERM are lurking then we need to ensure we get adequate value for our assets and not a low ball offer. Right now even the company can only estimate how big the gas could be in the CMB.

The best strategy is to drill drill drill and tackle the fundamentalist opposition head on. Public opinion will change when drilling can be shown to be done safely and the law ignoring nature of the oppositon can be shown.

It seems so simple yet this current management never ceases to amaze me with their inaction.