ok so who is still in, page-33

The options granted to Taghmen Ventures expire on the 30/6/2012, so I'd have thought before then (albeit there's only 75,000 options so not that much time pressure I suppose, though it makes sense to recieve them rather than waiting around either way). It's worth noting the price on the options is set at 50c, obviously at a premium to the current share price, so it's in Taghmen's interest to get us a good deal (not to mention the 9 million shares they will get that they'll want to see a high price on).

I wouldn't have thought AOI would be considered because of past problems. I'm not convinced they could afford it either. They've got $120m in the bank (source: their March 2011 presenation on their website), and out of that they're going to be paying approximately $30m to drill 2 Puntland wells (paying interest of 50% and $25m a drill, plus Range are carried for $15m on the second well)).

Now that gives them $90m left to play with. Sounds a lot, but offshore drilling costs are much higher than onshore, and given that their onshore deal cost them $50m for their interest in the 2 blocks, it sounds like a bit of a stretch for their finances- at least until they make some discoveries in their other projects and get producing.

I'd also suspect, as a Canadian company, AOI would be somewhat limited in what they could do about any pirate attacks. Whereas, say, a company from China (or another similar country) would likely have no problems, and face no legal issues back home in simply gunning them all down if they tried to approach the rig.

We would need to carry out seismic on offshore Puntland. Make no mistake, even if a farm in partner is found very soon, it'll be a while before any drilling takes place. Think about how long it's taken us to acquire the Georgia blocks, shoot the seismic, and get a rig in place- from June 2009 to now- almost 2 years. But the potential for long termers is massive.

I'm not sure about the Columbia/PELE thing, I know it's been discussed elsewhere but I can't say I really know whether they've got a connection or not. I guess time will tell.