It really doesn't matter how many shares are are in the...

It really doesn't matter how many shares are are in the float.
You buy a percentage of the shares on issue you increase the percentage ownership of the rest of the shares .
You give any large stale shareholders a chance to sell out .
Having enough working cash reserves for the drilling program including any unexpected contingencies and buying shares before the project is completed is a risk they are saying they won't take .
For me buy backs are much better than dividends .
At least while the share price under values the business assets as much as appears to be the case here .