blinkers off, page-3

Arion,

It's pretty simple really, you need to look at cash flow, not at profits if you are looking for cash for shareholders.

About four years ago CVN did accumulate cash upon initial extraordinary success, but not enough to pay out anything to shareholders - with much of it either required for working capital, a little for new ventures, and a lot earmarked for tax payments.

Since then luck has not been so good, and profits have pretty much been reinvested in building reserves and exploration within the permit areas.

So now we have a lot more reserves (although a drop in the latest year), but not a lot more cash. Permit licences don't last for ever, so I guess reinvestment in exploration rather than just into development/production was the prudent thing to do.

As with Brett I'd rather use darts than the target price of brokers, esp of house brokers.

Well I don't understand geology, but I invest in companies who effectively depend on geology. I still try to understand the company, and it's efforts WITHOUT trying to understand the geology itself.

In the case of CVN I don't think the geology has worked not to any expert geologists expectation, so not sure a lot more geology would have helped us posters. Seen a lot of oil fields disappoint their geologists over the years of investing in oilers. Best imho to keep your individual oil holdings relatively modest - almost always high risk.

EL