artemis, page-20

I would say it would be a contributing factor Pocko and my take on it is this:

The AFL footy trading season is coming up so perhaps we can take a parallel to that. To get a decent player from another club the buyer has to meet certain criteria set out by the selling club. This may involve trades from a third club to satisfy the seller and buyer alike. This can usually take longer than the week allocated to trading.

In this case the MEO shareholders have Artemis as the valued player and the potential farminee is the club who wants it, be it WPL, Chevron or whoever. The other clubs involved are CUE and Gascorp (not listed). MEO is presently doing deals with these other clubs so that it can settle the deal with the farminee. In turn these smaller stakeholders are doing their own deals to take advantage of the situation.

One of these deals is that Gascorp has, in a round about way, floated its 15% share of Artemis on the market, through Mobyl Oil (MOG). Both Gascorp and MOG have already benefited from this deal, should the price of MOG hold and even improve. The initial extremely strong support for Artemis through MOG has shown the value of Artemis.

I believe this will only bolster MEOs claims for a robust deal. With the Gascorp/MOG deal in the wings MEO had no choice but to let the farmout agreement pass the 30th September station and keep on running 'on track' until the shareholders best interests are met.

At the very least, todays events have shown the market's perceived value of Artemis - and this is ony a part of MEO's grand plan.

Who knows what else may eventuate through this intriguing trade off.

Only my view and make of it what you will.