who subscribed to the spp, page-24

Jojo,

HDR was very different. Imo we allowed ourselves to be conned. There were a lot of changing faces there, that didn't entirely add up, Guyane was always hyped and never happened, WPL sold, the CEO told halftruths (eg Chinq & on the govt squabble), yet we bought. Perhaps some mitigation to our guilibility was that the London insto's took up the last placement at the top, but then that was probably another warning signal - were they spurned by local insto's who had good WPL grapevines. Short positions probably also indicated a lot of insider info in the market.

Nevertheless, I believe I learnt a few lessons, and although slow to do so, those lessons have caused me to exit both ROC and PSA, but not COE.

COE is different, no changing faces, real delivery (not just drilling luck either), committed management. The story holds together entirely with the trivial exception of MOS. COE is less than 5% of my portfolio, hence prepared to top up heavy if the reward got really obvious. In general oilers bother me, I am much more sceptical of them than I was, and much more so than of the hardrock brigade.

Better to compare COE to the early phase of HDR than the later if you are going to, but is it really valid?

EL