I've stated my opinion on this a few times but will do so again in this thread. For me, given Scott already has good relationships in-country and we already have the technical aspects sorted out, the source of funding to me doesn't matter as at this stage of the game, non-cash assistance is not needed. We don't need technical help, we don't need development planning assistance, we don't need more in-country connections, we don't need contractor assistance to get 2 wells drilled. It is all sorted and we are spudding a well late June/early July. The locations are likely already more or less set and a JV partner isn't going to change it.
So for me, dumb money is as good as smart money at this stage so I would do a raise and keep the WI. This way if a discovery is made we can farm-down later on and choose a partner who can help with development experience and not just funding. And their entry price will likely pay IVZs share of development costs... So limited future dilution.
I'd actually rather we do something more creative and raise $30M odd but have Cluff fully underwrite a SPP or rights issue. So shareholders can get their fill and Cluff scoop up probably the $20M left in the raise. They keep the upside/participation through our share price. Then they can always enter a JV after a discovery. Any other party incl our Saudi/UAE friends could also participate in this way and cornerstone a raise.
Failure case we go to 0 if we are holding 80% or 50% interest. But in a success case we could lose hundreds of millions of dollars worth of market cap if we bring in a JV partner now. So for shareholders, we lose a lot of future upside but keep the exact same downside.
... Raise the cash and let's release the breaks on the share price leading up to drilling.
We are not in a position of having a $25M market cap and needing $80M to drill an offshore well... If we were then yes of course farm down to get the cash.
