Dargie, I do not doubt that it is likely that Zeta will agree to...

Dargie,

I do not doubt that it is likely that Zeta will agree to most if not all proposals for Cue put forward by NZO. This however need only have NZO pause and think, how can we put this so as to get Zeta on board? (or SPC for that matter). An offside Zeta and SPC have more votes than NZO.

NZO has been reasonably willing to return cash to shareholders since Tui started, and I am sure Zeta is interested in extracting cash from their investments so I think we will see a lot of common interest there that will do no harm to ordinary shareholders. Cue certainly seems to have squandered an awful lot of the cash that has flowed from Maari and Sampang, and has been resolute in not returning any cash to shareholders.

I am not an advocate for holding the cash to pick up "cheap" assets in the near term either, as I do not believe we will be seeing fire sales and blood on the street at $50 oil, just a lot of pain, a few defaults and a lot of belt tightening. Need an additional calamity for the true bargains to appear imho. Let's have the cash back well before we start really electrifying our cars - a very good thing, unless you are left with stranded resources.

I am all for keeping enough cash for brownfields extensions in the Kupe and Maari areas, and some very high quality green fields exploration, for NZO and Cue esp. in NZ, but dubious about more money into the likes of MHs. And what a wasted little ego trip Tunisia was for NZO.

EL