get real, page-7

G'day Rod, although I can understand what is behind your comments, I've got an entirely different take on what's going on at CTP.

What I have never understood about CTP, though, is why so many holders bag the stock and then complain that the share price is not going up. I can to some extent understand the non-holders who regularly downramp the stock, and I feel sorry for them, because they must have very sad lives if they have nothing better to do than to waste their days dreaming up negative things to say about a company in which they do not even have any financial interest.

I've never had any personal involvement in a small exploration company, but I did work for one of the major international oil companies in my early working life (I think that they were the second biggest oil company in the world at that time), and I soon learnt that nothing happened in a hurry in our exploration subsidiary. I also learnt that when it came to drilling for oil, we had more failures than successes.

So when I decided to invest in CTP, I wasn't expecting overnight miracles.

I started investing in the sharemarket in 1968 (yes, I'm an old dinosaur), and although I've mainly invested on fundamentals, I've probably gone on what we commonly call gut feelings on about 20% of my investments. Fortunately, most of them have paid off, but a few have gone belly up. CTP was one of the gut feeling investments, and I'm feeling quite confident that it will not be one of those that goes belly up.

When I first invested in CTP, I did so at 16 cents, and I've bought as high as 20 cents, but with a bit of horsetrading I've got my average down to about 7.3 cents. CTP was a little unknown explorer when I first invested, but their extensive tenements were a big attraction, and I just had the feeling that there had to be some oil or coal in the centre.

Despite all the criticism, and the bagging of JH, I have to say that I've been sitting back and progressively becoming more and more confident about CTP's future, even though I'm absolutely baffled about why so many people run down the company in which they have invested their money. As I've suggested once or twice before, if you're a shareholder and you have issues that you are not happy about, why not just contact the company and resolve the issues, rather than posting criticisms on HC which are likely to have a depressing effect on the SP and discourage potential investors.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm far from infallible, but my take on the events of the last few months is that we're very close to taking a major step forward. If I'm wrong, so be it. But my investment now at 7.3 cents is looking a hell of a lot better than my original investment at 16 cents in a pure spec with nothing to recommend it, other than a big land-holding.

We now know that we have potentially huge quantities of coal, oil and gas; all we need to do now is bring on board one or more JV partners with the expertise and financial backing to prove that the resources really do exist, and bring them into production.

For anyone who doesn't believe that this is at least a strong possibility, or even a probability, I really wonder why you are still on the shareholder register.

And last but not least, I pay my respects to JH, the man who has persevered despite the wave after wave of criticism which has been levelled at him. Without JH, there would be no Central Petroleum.