My understanding is that the other partners' shares all revert to ERHC, not the JDA. Then ERHC can farm them out again. Since we get to choose the owner, we would only choose someone who would carry us. Thus the popping of champagne corks. Now we have all this "valuable data" for free (if they really walked) and can look for a new operator (Total probably I guess) From the FAQ:
"The operators’ decision is expected to be made public at anytime. In the event of the operators terminating their involvement in the Blocks, the participating interests we transferred to them would return to us and ERHC would be able to seek new operating partners for the JDZ Blocks. It would be similar to what occurred in 2005 when our technical partners at the time, Devon Energy Corp., Noble Energy Corp. and Pioneer Natural Resources relinquished their JDZ rights and ERHC replaced them with Addax and Sinopec."
