hardman vs neon, page-2

Cjames, I'll have a go but dates and timeframes are beyond me now.

HDR's campaign in Mauritania was similar for the following reasons:

1/ Offshore drilling (but far more frontier risk than for Neon)
2/ Two drills in quick succession, about 30 days apart.

3/ HDR was very much a junior with a minor amount of production (less than Neon)

4/ Similar market cap at the time of drilling.

Major differences include:

1/ Low price of oil, around mid 20's when HDR drilled.

2/ Extremely limited infrastructure in place for HDR, basically none.

3/ High sovereign risk at Mauritania

4/ HDR had limited ability to reduce risk, unlike Neon.

5/ Neons Cua-Lo is considerably bigger than HDR's initial discovery. Block 120 target is about the same size as HDR's discovery but Neon has a slightly bigger percentage of the jv.

6/ Neon has a more balanced portfolio of projects covering low to high risk.

7/ Neon has much stronger cash flow.

HDR declared a commercial discovery of approx 180MB(later reduced to 120MB) at Chinguetti, the sp went from 35c the day before to a peak that day of $1.10.

For the next month while their second well was drilling the sp was in range of about 95c- $1.30.

The second well was no good and the sp plunged to 45c before starting a recovery. For the next 12 months it hung around 60c.

As time progressed to production some 3.5 years later the sp climbed to $2 and had a number of cap raisings along the way.

It finally hit $2.50 as a result of the takeover offer and once absorbed the HDR story ended.