re: roc takeover coming ?? I am in agreement with you guys,...

re: roc takeover coming ?? I am in agreement with you guys, there's just may too much going on at ROC, and it was so lowly rated 2004 and most of 2005. Hard to see it not putting on another 50 cps this year, but IMO also more likely to go over $4 (without any major new discovery).

Setting aside "possible" wildcard successes such as Equatorial Guinea, Willows or Jacala, my reasoning is that the major drivers going forward are:

*Rerating as actual cashflow from Chinq & Cliffhead shows up in the quarterlies.
*Increasing anticipation of the probability of finding substantial oil in Angola, within the first 3 (2006) wells. Must be a near cert of finding commercial oil in the permit within a year or so.
* Very active North Perth exploration program, including the untested TP/15 permit, which seems to get all the JV geo's excited.
* Pending FIDs (probably Tevet and/or Tiof) in Mauritania
* Signing of gas agreement for Mauritania, and resolution of (the currently overblown) dispute regarding PSC INTERPRETATION DETAILS.

Lesser factors:
* Successful follow up on one or more Mauritanian discoveries, Labn, Faucon, Banda etc, either by appraisal, or nearby discovery.
* Increasing anticipation of a Mauritanian LNG project
* Blane/Enoch approaching production (bound to grab mor UK investor attention).
* China probably moving forward in some modest way. Economics and NPV may be better sitting out current high development cost situation.

A bit of a quiet achiever, with appropriate exposure levels to high risk/high reward areas.

Interestingly I noted in the Feb 20 issue of OGJ there was an article discussing the implications of the Iranian situation, with one of the main implications postulated being much more intense competition for access to African resources from both India and China, driving up acreage prices etc.

Anyway after Jaquar yesterday, and such a red ink day today, was very pleased two of my top four holdings (ROC and IGO) achieved all time records today.

Entropylord

PS Don't take any notice of me, I owe John Doran a kind word for the free pass to Good Oil last year.