hdr sells eni-agip percentage, page-23

I believe from a short term perspective its good however in the longer term (if there is one) it is not as good.

for example, if the extra money means that they dont have to farmin to Guyane (as an example) and retain there 97% for the drilling of Matamata and this well is successful then they have made the right decision. ie if matamata has 500mbo then 97% of this, rather than 20-30% (if they were to farmin) is extremely significant, as they have only forgone 11-13% of 600mbo tiof/chinguetti plus others tevet etc... you do the math.. again i am only estimating for the purposes of discussion..

A further possibly is that maybe they couldnt get debt financing with the 35% stake and they were forced to sell the ENI stake to proceed with the debt financing.

The other point that needs to be made is that 30% of the gain will be taxable so the after tax money receivable by HDR would be less than US$100.

go matamata