duster, page-8

Although I have been sitting the past few weeks out waiting on the test results, I have been following the discussion here with interest. Like many others I have lost money on the dusters that MEO has drilled, but I do accept the risks involved in O&G exploration and the speculative nature of my investment.

The decision to invest in MEO was based on my own interpretation of the company and its prospects, weighing up the pros as well as the cons. And there certainly were cons related to MEO's cash position, some management decisions (capital raisings and strategy) and the likelyhood that it would need to raise capital someting during drilling operations (it was not adequately funded to test Gurame - which I pointed out on a HC post) and the operational risks involved in drilling the well itself (there were) which the company needed to fund 100%.

Also, while I liked Heron and MEO's Carnarvon Basin permit interests, I didn't like the company's go-it-alone Indonesia strategy. This went directly against MEO's clearly ennunciated business strategy of farming out expensive drilling.

So it was my decision based on my own analysis of what the company put out.

But what I have noted on this site is what I would discribe as blatent ramping by several prominant bloggers (some of which I have tangles with in the past but was proved right particularly on the capital raising issue).

I have to say too that pronouncements by both the MD Juren Hendricks and Exploration Manager David Maughan at the AGM seem in retrospect (although couched as an each-way bet)to have been overly optimistic and could have been misleading to some. The blogs were very persuasive but I thought that some of the information put out could be construed as misleading - I thought so and took no account of them. It may have been different for others.