While it's unclear whether you hold or not, I do agree with your thoughts.
Majors are not usually tolerant of minor parties in big projects, but, takeover may not be the easy solution. It would entail getting close to 20% before announcing any bid and also they would need to secure large blocks of stock, particularly those held by the board.
Takeovers are a messy way to seal the deal. The simplest way is to make an offer for 100%, either by cash or scrip, leaving the board with a clean shell full of cash or stock....whether Carl&Co would entertain a wide deal is unknown.
Could EMP go it alone???.... unlikely, though not impossible given the MC has moving from around 5 to 12M. It would entail a huge raise, with the need for cornerstone investors. Not impossible but highly unlikely and also a huge corporate risk
As for " use it or lose it", it doesn't apply to offshore acreage given there are firm expenditure commitments and one of the main reasons NOPTA renewed the block was the fact that EMP had met its commitments, stymied only by covid. So, yes, they can " lose" it, but they cannot simply sit back and hold the block, doing nothing, as the term implies
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