actually, i believe sskim has a good point. for a long time CVI...

actually, i believe sskim has a good point. for a long time CVI promised and delivered on time and occasionally surprised us pleasantly. for this they were well rewarded by the market and we were all happy but, imo, the delays with Kwanza have been the stumbling block. the current market conditions have not helped but it is impossible to define which is more responsible for CVI's retreat, the kwanza delay or market conditions. But this is part of the deal of doing business in places like Angola.

btw fwiw I think the angolans are sincere enough about seeing their country going forward on the back of their resources but maybe they are still, err shall we say, a little disorganised. It was a CVI release that stated matter of factly that they were informed on 5th Dec that they needed to show they had 100mill in the bank. that was a big curve ball to throw at CVI no matter how upbeat MS wanted to appear. But they handled it. we'll see what happens when the leases finally do come through.

Another point I'd like to make. I hear what martis is saying about bear markets, falling earnings, no stock will be spared etc etc, and i accept that. But.... what about that little statistic getting around that for every 9 barrels of oil being used by the world today only 1 is being discovered. even if the unthinkable should happen with Martis's scenario and the world's energy usage was to HALVE then new oil discoveries will still be way below world usage. Add to that most of the low hanging fruit is gone, kapoot, finished. If oil was to return to historical values, say $20/barrel then a lot of outfits will be going broke before CVI does as we have what is amongst the last of the easy oil. and that scenario will only add to the scarcity of oil hence immediately driving prices back up.

And what about the gold. everyone thinks about CVI as an oil and copper company but what about that access road where the waste material used to build it are 2g/t of gold. have a scout across the gloomy HC threads at the moment. there are many references to the fact that gold producers may be the only successful companies going foward from here. It is quite likely that CVI will soon have very significant gold reserves.