ND9 and kingpindg,
The information that you're discussing dates back before three key events:
1) Erhc's 8k - the 8k, the way I read it, is analogous to when you do a title search on some real estate that you intend to buy and then discover that the real estate is titled to someone other than the seller. ERHC issued an "international caveat emptor" which states that any buyer better beware that block 4 is "titled" to ERHC Energy and any attempt to acquire it or drill on it would have the consequence that the "buyer" would have to disgorge any oil profits back to ERHC.
Sure there may have been 3 companies interested prior to this international caveat emptor, but I am sure that there are no companies interested now, or if they are then they are quite foolish to want to enter into block 4, do all the hard work to drill, only to lose the fruits of their labor in litigation to ERHC.
Furthermore, we know that the contract signed between ERHC and Sao Tome on Block 4 falls not under the jurisdiction of the Sao Tomean govt but under the jurisdiction of the London Court of Arbitration as written in the contract itself. In this court, both ERHC and Total have won victories and are familiar with that court.
I seriously doubt that Sao Tome can confiscate the block on the basis of tax law it passed after the fact and after the contract was signed and taxes that may be on an unrelated block.
2) Shell entered into 3 blocks in the EEZ once again confirming the success of Jaca-1. I find it no coincidence that STP suddenly values block 4 now when it could have easily waited until Sept 2024 and scooped up the block if no one was interested in the EEZ. If there were no interest in Block 4, waiting a few months would've guaranteed STP having block 4 returned to it. Instead, STP pulls this stunt which could send this block years into litigation with ERHC/Total handily winning the case in the London Court of Arbitration.
I mean how stupid is that when all they had to do was wait until Sept 2024. But clearly, ERHC already had Total, and so waiting until Sept 2024 was not an option so STP had to resort to this riskier decision of grabbing block 4 now.
3) xrimlinger.com took down the advertising which valued Oranto's block 3 which is adjacent to block 4. That very likely means that someone paid the price Oranto was asking for (or near to it). That price along with Oranto's JDZ asset incidentally values ERHC at $1 a share. It could be very possible that Total is involved in the Oranto purchase and that may have been the last of the conditions requiring satisfying for Total to make an ERHC block 3 and block 4 announcement. Shell didn't announce until it had secured all three blocks, so maybe Total was waiting to secure these two blocks before announcing as well. Note that Total already has a block in the EEZ.
The above 3 events makes what you're currently discussing obsolete and old news... and so to answer your question more succinctly: I'm not worried in the least about it.
We are golden as far as I'm concerned.
Krombacher
