As irritiating as it is to have another placement, i can see why they did it. As at last report, as you state, they had $18m in cash they also state that they had estimated outgoing (development & exploration) of around $6.5m (Page 9 of Qtyrly). when added to the $8m cash they used to purchase Roma 20% in the oil assets comes to $14.5m. While they may have managed to scrape through to option exercise in the end of Jan, it would have exposed them to serious risk if markets had a wobbly in the interim and the option werent exercised.
VPE Price at posting:
32.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held