annual report, page-29

nervous,

any upgrade may be quite small given DC and the gang refrained from providing this over the past 12 months until Tintsfield was running (given Tintsfield would be responsible for a significant amount of any reserves upgrade).

So, while you could see an upgrade, not certain whether it would translate to anything meaningful in terms of a higher bid.

Also, I would be 95% certain there will not be a competing bid for ESG. I know many speak about BG trumping AOE for Pure, however, STO is a very different to AOE with a significantly stronger balance sheet and market cap. No one will get involved in a bidding war against them.

In the current environment, I'm sure STO are confident (as they should be)the deal will be completed. In fact, given no institution shareholder has come out to say the offer is 'opportunistic' and 'doesn't reflect the true value of the company' suggests to me that they are very much already on board - unlike the BOW offer where a number of broking houses have even commented that a higher bid will be forthcoming.

In the end, a stake in STO is not all that bad. Certainly it has plenty of upside from current prices.