GulfSlope Energy Inc (GSPE)

[MktMvn]

Interesting that you brought up Cobalt. That was a bunch of ex-major oil company executives who got a line of credit from financial interests that was somewhere close to $1/2 billion. That allowed them to behave like a major in terms of staffing, technology and buying acreage. The down side to it was that the financial types wanted big success for their money, and they wanted it with the first well. That made it pretty uncomfortable when Cobalt didn’t have immediate success and the financial types started meddling in Cobalt’s business, despite their lack of exploration expertise. It all worked out after a few wells, and Cobalt was able to go public and dump the financial Albatross. Gulfslope could have done what Cobalt did when they were first starting out and grabbed a bunch of investment bank money. But John Seitz was well aware of the strings attached and went for “friends and family” funding to maintain the company’s independence. Not sure if he regrets his decision or not, but he is still around and still relatively independent. Just really unfortunate that the Tau well had so much trouble, and never reached the mother lode.