not such a great night, page-53

Sandys,

A 13% drop today is no doubt a smack in the face, particularly in light of recent falls that preceded it, but what does this mean ?

A week ago today the stock was trading at 11c. At that point the market had already been informed that SoA had lost another drill bit down the hole and that they would Frac the upper sections of the well rather than continuing. The market already knew that Defender frac was complete and flowback operations were going slowly and no news of oil production.

One week on, operationally little has changed other than an news that a pump will be put in place next week to give Defender a hand. The market has however decided that the stock is now worth only 8.3c.

Was SSN worth 11c last week or is that just what a few people were willing to pay ? Is the stock actually worth only 8.3c today or is that just what a couple of people are willing to sell at ? Has the value and prospects of the company really changed by 25% in the last week ? Is it really appropriate and rational behaviour to blame the company for the decisions made by a few buyers and sellers at a given point in time ?

It seems to me that if you brought stock in the market today then you are of the belief that the sellers are wrong. Logically that means that the current price is not a reflection of what you think the stock is worth. If the stock is worth more than the current price then why blame management for the individuals who sold for less than you think it is worth. Surely if anything you should be thanking the individuals who sold because they gave you an absolute bargain didn't they ? You did get a bargain right ? You didn't pay full price or above what its actually worth did you ?

Managements' job is to run the company, not to play games to manage the share price. I believe that is what they are doing. If you believe that you personally or anybody else for that matter could have predicted and resolved the issues drilling through the salt dome down SoA then please tell us how. Better still predict it before it happens. That would be more useful. If you knew that Defender was going to have low presure and know how to get more oil out of it quicker then please share your thoughts with us and management so we know what they are actually doing wrong.

Just as importantly you might want to rethink your statement re fracking in the Bakken. The delays there aren't news. The oil has been down there for millions of years and a few months delay in getting a fracking crew on site isn't going to change the amount of oil that we get out of the hole, unless there is something you know that the rest of us don't. The revenue is delayed by a few months but not lost. In fact given that oil prices are actually trending up, the delay may have counter intuitively added value longer term but we won't use that as a strategy going forward I suspect.

Now since we have all known of the backlog of fracking jobs in the Bakken for the last year, why is it that you now chose to use that as your primary argument to blame management for the change in attitudes of investors / traders between last Wednesday and today ? Do you really think that the SP change is a direct result of a backlog in fracking in the Bakken that started well over a year ago ? Is it really managements fault or might there be other factors at play ?

Is todays price movement really sufficient justification to let lose with a post like that or are we just feeling a little emotional ? Do you not think that SSN management might be feeling a little disolusioned by this price action which they have no control over ? Maybe TB should start a buyback to manipulate the share price. Would that be adding value ?