Agreed HKP, I doubt that COP would offer and FAR would sell...

Agreed HKP,

I doubt that COP would offer and FAR would sell ahead of a preliminary 2 well appraisal program costing approx $250m (Far share about $40m). COP's primary corporate concern at the moment will be to take the lead. Very simply, they want and need the Operatorship from CNE before anything else so I'd expect the offer to more toward getting, maybe, an additional10-15% and operatorship from CNE first. This would give COP the controlling interest and lead in the JV.

I also believe that FAR's country goodwill status is very real and it could serve COP to keep FAR in the team to assist with the inevitable political and fiscal machinations that tend to perk up around "GDP significant" resources. But there will definitely be a point where COP will no longer need/want FAR.

Just another possible point to consider here is that FAR may not have a lot of flexibility in what they can sell. Most oil JVA's contain a minority buy-out provision that automatically kicks in if a partner's interest falls below 10%.. So it could be 5% or the whole lot; but not likely something in between.

I had a chat the BP analyst before taking some of the placement to ascertain the real cash position of FAR. Bottom line is he didn't know and FAR couldn't/(wouldn't) tell him because bills and drilling still outstanding. But we did some arm waving and some guesstimating and speculated (key world here) that FAR could have between $4-8m left after SNE...MAYBE!... so a raise was very necessary and prudent.

I'm glad that they did and I'm happy to average up.

FWIW, I really do think that FAR is participating in one of those extremely rare "top 10 in a decade" type discoveries. I haven't quite yet gone to the same drug cabinet as our zealous thread leader, Aqua (6Bbbls and more!) but I'm definitely scratching in the 1-2B paddock for now. And Aqua, I trust you wont consider that 'down-ramping'! Lol!

Cheers