new shareholder, page-14

Yes, I thought any post of mine that had even a hint of criticism in it would be seized on by your good self as a propaganda victory.

It looks like Mrs Yaq owes me a bottle from Dan Murphy's.

But db, remember, it is not LNGN that Santos and friends need to be concerned about. It is BG and Shell. They are the biggest threat to GLNG not only securing gas for Train 2 but for Trains 3 and beyond. Whether I am keen on ESG doing LNGN is neither here nor there. The point is that LNGN will force the hands of the predators, of which Santos/GLNG is just one.

So I am not going to come on here and spout the 'ESG company line' that ESG is passionate about doing LNGN. OF COURSE it is more likely that ESG is going to be taken over than not. Just a survey of the top mining companies from 5 or 10 years ago reveals that many of them are no long there. They either get very big, or they get taken out. Such is life.

ESG don't have to be a Santos. There are explorers, there are developers and there are producers. There are those whose expertise is in upstream, and those who are in downstream. There are those small to medium sized companies who take the risks in the searching and evaluating, and those large companies who are quite happy to pay the big dollars once those resources and reserves have been derisked.

And there are those companies that work hard for many years, to get a good but modest return because there is only one party tendering/bidding for them. And then there are those who achieve a VERY BIG fistful of dollars, because they orchestrated multi-party interest.

Yep, ESG are a young company sitting on a world-class resource. They do many things very well, and some things not so well. No news there. Even ESG supporters know what kind of company they invest in. (How many ESG supporters are in ESG because they are passionate about LNG production? Reality check.)

A long time ago, I suggested that there were many pieces of evidence that pointed to ESG's 'short-termism'. They themselves used to define themselves in presentations, in term of comparative transaction metrics (what value to assign their resource/reserve on the basis of a change of control). Nothing I have seen has changed my view on this.

ESG will get the big dollars form the majors, if they can demonstrate they have a large and commercial resources and reserve, and if two large players/groups are going head to head.

Yaq