Macgee, I have no more information about this than you do,...

Macgee, I have no more information about this than you do, possibly less, but there seems to be an obvious possible situation here which would justify and perhaps even require the current state of affairs. Just suppose that you are CVN and you are trying to interest a major - Woodside maybe, but make your own guess - in the farm-out.

Now with your field located where it is, it's obviously much more sensible for the partnership to be with some company holding processing assets close by. And if that company just happens to have a lot of expensive new processing plant which just happens to be a bit light on for gas to pump through it 'cause their extended expoloration area turned out to be a bit of a fizzer - well, your find is going to be especially valuable to them, and you'd reckon they'd be dead-set keen to cut a good deal for you and get hold of your gas to keep their plant busy.

On the other hand, if you are that major, and you know that CVN don't actually have enough cash to be able to walk away from whatever deal you offer them first 'cause they really, really need your cash to exploit the find - well, you are going to want to squeeze them a little harder, aren't you? They need you more than you need them - that has to be worth a few points in any negotiation.

And if the truth of the matter is anything remotely like what I've just outlined - and I emphasise that I have absolutely no knowledge of this, this is pure guesswork - then CVN's capital raising could put it in a much stronger negotiating position, yes? And any stalled negotiation would be best kept private until an agreement is reached. The major would have good reason to delay a little and play hardball (not too hard, 'cause they want the gas) and CVN would have good reason to want to complete the capital raising and return to the negotiations in a stronger position with money in the bank.

I'm not saying that's what's going on. (I have no idea what's going on.) I'm just making up a plausible story which seems to fit the facts. Who knows? It could even be the right one.

In the meantime, I'm happy to hold and await events. I will probably go with the 82c offer, but there is no hurry. I'll wait for a while and see what the SP does over the next few days.