preopen, page-72

re: hdr / roc Hardmano, kahuna, and others

Takeover is a bit of a stretch but certainly within the realm of possibilities. I for one would be very dissappointed if a t.o. offer comes right now because it would invariably be too low. At say $2, i would say most shareholders barring Woodside would have sold.

To me HDR is a perfect takeover target because it is sitting on such an attractive areage in Mauritania and is still very reasonably priced that it would irresponsible for majors to pass it over, particularly in the current environment where oil price is high but there is no corresponding surge in exploration simply because most prospective areas around the worldhas already been found.

This is why I see HDR being taken over as a foregone conclusion; the only question is when.