"It is easy to use the throw-away line" I agree a will desist from doing so. Since we are judging single lines - how do you judge: Icon signs China Gas MOU Deal valued up to $32billion dollars Clearly signing deals that are 175 times a company's market cap should be taken more seriously than I thought.
"The MOU is not an agreement to sell gas"
ok ... what is it?
"It is an understanding" ... yep we agree. After all, that "U" in MOU had to stand for something
"for ICN and Sinogas to move forward" ... still agree.
"and sign a detailed Gas/LNG sales contract" ... mmmmm It isn't an agreement to sell gas, its a detailed Gas/LNG sales contract.
"OR source third party gas by a certain date" You are not the only person to post that ICN have the magical ability to source gas cheap from some foolish company and on-sell it to sinogas. Well - that would contradict most market logic - but it would go some way to justify a board/management bill of $2.1million dollars p.a. for a non-producer.
It does have gas in its permits, and is in the process of converting it to proven reserves Well ... being the type that is "wrong on all fronts" ... I certainly struggle with the concept of Prospective Resources into Contingent Resources into Reserves. Then the p10/p50/p90 to c1/c2/c3 to p1/p2/p3 .. oh dear .. how does Mr Ray McNamara wrap his enormous capabilities around such complexities. Thankfully, good old Ray explained it in the Sep Quarterly for people like me:
One of the strategic objectives set by the Company at its Annual General Meeting in 2008 was to move to our resource in place towards the 2P and 3P reserve classification. wait for it ... here it comes ... The diagram below shows our progress towards this objective.
See that arrow! It explains what the "future drilling program" will do! Phew, thanks Ray ... I was never going to get the transition otherwise! Now I understand why Ray is paid $443k in 2010 (up from $360k in 2009) IF only I could learn to do arrows like that - I too could be earning the big bucks!
Lastly,
Announcements that waste my time with utter ramping crud annoy me. I'm not here to save anyone ... do whatever you like with your "exclusive" "$32billion" MOU I like the opportunity to call a $2.1million board full of it just that.
ICN Price at posting:
36.0¢ Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)