There are several reasons why one company would write down an asset whilst another could find success from it. It happens all the time.
Just to keep facts as facts, MAD was IPO'd in 2010 as an extension of Maverick drilling, the company who did the drilling for both Petrosearch and Kellco Energy. So whilst it may seem suspicious that these company sold their assets, they did not 'write down' or 'write off' its investment in traditional uses of the word. I.e. BHP writing down assets is not the same as what happened here.
Furthermore, BHP being the biggest miner means it has more chances to hit and miss with timing than anyone else, so I don't see it as a valid point. Sometimes commodities are hot, sometimes their not. BHP does well at playing the field.
In closing, consider this:
1.) Maverick has already extracted more oil than Petrosearch and Kellco did during their ownership and in half the time
2.) MAD is already recovering oil, at a profit
3.) MAD initially listed and dropped like a lead balloon for the very reasons you are listing, the awakening of its shareprice happened when it proved its low cost drilling (by turning a profit 3rd quarter last year) and by increasing its reserves massively through seismic analysis and drilling program to test that seismic.
4.) Insolvency is never irrelevant but it wasn't the director himself, it was belle cachet. The insolvency could of been done for many reasons, only known to the director himself (including Tax reasons). I feel that despite brokers being lousy at most technical evaluations (they rely on geos rather than engineers) they would of found this insolvency and know the reason for it.
5.)If you read the Maverick history from the website I posted, American energy group was successful both times it was in the field, an extract from their 2001 yearly tells why they abandoned the field:
"Quoted oil prices during the quarter for sales of oil by the Company during the quarter averaged $18.32 per barrel." - The company actually hedged oil price in 1999 incase of further falls, however the oil price recovered in 2000 rather than falling.
The above will show you in both 1994 and 1999 why the field was abandoned by american oil search. They didn't have the capital funds to produce oil at those low prices.
This is while mentioning that the majority, 75 of their 111 wells were shallow drills, requiring heavy mechanical pumping. The other wells were higher capital investment for a deeper drill but didn't require as much mechanical assistance or any mechanical assistance to flow.
There are more points, but I'll leave you these to ponder.
FDM Price at posting:
99.5¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
