My take: A balancing act by ourmanagement - who appointed...

My take:

A balancing act by ourmanagement - who appointed brokers to fill the share placement with thepossibility that Santos could have snaffled the lot.

I know from pastinvolvement elsewhere that offering a share placement to existing shareholderscan be messy - especially when there's a heavy weighting of privateinvestors holding a small amount of shares in the grand scheme of things.

Attracting new fleshin the game is a double-edged sword - in that it's good to have newpeople/institutions on-board as it broadens the shareholders base - but itopens-up the company to quick profit taking when the share price rises whichputs a 'brake' on good news being rewarded as it should when announced.

The one thing thatthis share placement has proved IMO is that Santos is not serious about gettingfurther involved in the Mahalo Blocks long-term - otherwise they would havesnaffled the entire share placement. This doesn't mean that they won't exercisetheir right to bag the agreed percentage of the main Mahalo Block at thediscounted pro-rata rate paid to APLNG - it would be stupid for them to letthat opportunity pass.

Before this shareplacement I was convinced that Santos were primed to buy COI and were justplaying the 'waiting game' - hoping that COI would run out of money knowingthat with the debt owed to them that COI shareholders would be forced to accepta low-ball offer. Now I'm feeling that Santos are less likely to be COI's JVPartner taking Mahalo to production.

I may be wrong - andthe announcement of a share placement at short notice could have put Santos onthe back foot - meaning that they had no time to react as the larger companiestend not to be able to react as quickly as others when it comes to investmentdecisions.

Either way - COI willproceed forward having eliminated the Santos debt concerns which puts COI in afar stronger position and opens up far more opportunities to bring an unrelatedthird-party farm-in partner to take Mahalo North to production - unless ofcourse we go it alone and raise more money to get there.

IMO - an earlytake-out is less likely now. So as an investment this is now a'slow-burner' with the rewards coming when production is reached - unless ofcourse Santos changes it's mind or a 'third party' who hasn't revealed itselfat this point in time - steps into the frame.

A mixed bag of news asfar as I am concerned - but more weight on the positive side.

Good luck All...