Nobody knows what the best deal is because we don't know what ES...

Nobody knows what the best deal is because we don't know what ES holds. In the end Cottee's deal may have been the best probably because he's the best negotiator. But The boards was the one that put the(ir) capital least at risk.

In this environment, I would favour the boards call, as I believe our major upside is the oil price. All of this puts Its good work nto perspective too.

As investors we get to pick from a lot of companies with exploration potential and we can take on that risk / return trade-off in the amount we want to. What makes us the big money is if we get it right.