I'd have thought the point was obvious. Range is drilling in...

I'd have thought the point was obvious. Range is drilling in Somalia. There's just been a high profile terrorist attack there. Terrorism doesn't exactly breed confidence when it comes to Range's ability to build and defend oil pipelines, rigs, and oil workers from attack. It also makes major oil companies wary about investing too much.

I appreciate it's many thousands of kilometres south of the drilling location, but that's a shortsighted view. Yes, it's unlikely that terrorism is going to impact negatively on the current well, or the second one in Shabeel North.

But having oil in an unstable country does make it less valuable, both to the market, and to major oil companies in a potential buyout. Knowing this, a terrorist attack isn't exactly irrelevant to Range, is it?

Take a look at AIM: GKP (Gulf Keystone Petroleum) if you want to see how political uncertainty in an oil province can impact on its value. GKP has current reserves (proved, P1 reserves that is) of 8 billion barrels, and they own them all. Their market cap is only £2.3bn though, so they're trading at about $0.45 a barrel because of the political uncertainty surrounding Kurdistan.

If you want a decent price for your oil, these terrorist attacks have to be stopped. That's the relevance to Range.