"I don’t know what case we will take to the President to be...

"I don’t know what case we will take to the President to be quite honest with you … to request an extension,” Coleman said ...

Perhaps I can help PC with his correspondence...
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Dear President Sall,

A few years ago we attempted to purchase a 35% interest in SNE from COP. We (WPL & COP) thought we were being very clever in the way we issued the PE notice to FAR Energy... in fact it was just one A4 sheet with the words "PE Notice!" on it haha, lols .

Then I made confused public pronouncements saying "we were buying a company, not an asset" "it is up to COP to deliver the asset" and words to the effect that it was no big deal for WPL if the transaction doesn't proceed since we have other things to move on to. COP also implicitly recognised the risk involved in taking this transaction approach when they made an allowance in their official filings incase issues needed to be resolved.

We did however have a sinking fear at the back of our minds that we might have (had) ignored the legitimate Pre-emption rights of FAR (the JV partner whose shareholders took significant risks with their capital to find the original oil), and that this made our legal standing in the JV somewhat tenuous.

On the flip side we had (maybe) purchased millions of barrels of oil at $2.20! woo hoo I felt like a cat that got the creme! haha. It was unfortunate that market perception of the below-fair-market-value $pb transaction caused the SP's and MC of the SNE JV partners to tank, costing their shareholders millions of dollars and causing dilution through raising at lower SP, but hey, them's the breaks.

Consequently we (COP and WPL) decided to brazen it out (we are big and important after all), by ignoring any approach from FAR to resolve the issue constructively and using every legal tactic in the book in an attempt to delay arbitration of the issue in the hope it would be dropped.

Now I’m in a tricky situation, since there is every chance that arbitration will be decided in favour of FAR and our role in the JV is therefore under existential threat <yikes!>. My unnecessary and intemperate public pronouncements about arbitration are now starting to look a bit silly to my BOD and shareholders since it seems I have boxed us all into a bit of a corner.

It is likely that a decision on arbitration will be announced in September, October or November this year. If we win, nothing will change, the JV will announce the financing package & FID and we’ll all move to development and production and creating wealth and opportunity for the people of Senegal.

If FAR wins arbitration, they will likely use their restored pre-emption rights, and deep pocketed backer (Petrosen, CNOOC, BP, Total or Shell) to purchase the 35%. We will have a small opportunity to negotiate an outcome wth FAR that will allow us to stay in the JV, but we will be in a very weak negotiating position, and sadly it will be extremely difficult for me to restrain my bruised ego enough to make sufficient concessions to negotiate a mutually beneficial outcome.

In the small chance that the ICC hasn’t made an arbitration decision by the time the PSC expires on 4 December, it -would- be prudent and sensible for me to ask on behalf of the JV for a few months extension until the JV makeup is confirmed… I don’t -really- want to ask for an extension, since I’d really prefer to continue with more posturing on the issue, (as a final futile rear guard attempt to influence the outcome). However the Government of Senegal, the rest of the JV, my BOD and shareholders aren’t likely to put up with this behaviour and could always take a vote and direct me to request the extension, or vote me off the island if I continued to be petulant.

Anyway, sorry for the drama that we (COP and WPL) have caused and our intransigence in not addressing JV issues before now, but ... can... the... JV... have a ......... psc extension please?

Most Respectfully

PC