I hear what you are saying, and I understand the desire to see shareholder value. I just don't see how it happens without oil.
We started with roughly $45 million or so and spent a bunch on lawyers and other expenses. We considered - according to the company - trying to find a revenue producing opportunity. How much were we going to spend? $10 million? $15 million? We couldn't spend it all and leave ourselves broke if the investment didn't work out. Last thing we need is more dilution! Debt free is nice - don't need a big brother looking over our shoulders either.
Personally, I didn't like the idea of property hunting from the beginning, and was happy it didn't happen. I just didn't see how we could find our way to an opportunity that would fit our needs and budget that would have been overlooked by much larger and smarter companies that us, unless of course some influence was to be used in obtaining that opportunity. Gee - we REALLLLLLLLY didn't need to go down that path. I took it as an overzealous attempt by management to appease a lot of background noise from impatient investors, and I still believe that is exactly what it was. We (the company in this case) were our own worst enemies, in my opinion, setting ourselves up for a failure that was almost certain to happen. To the company, the failure was probably a good thing, but for over-anxious and impatient investors - it was a blow to our hopes for shareholder value to increase.
So where does that leave us now? We have a limited amount of cash remaining, and frankly we best find a way to get smarter with it or we will run out before we can afford to - no pun intended. Assuming we indeed have found hydrocarbons that will be harvested in blocks 2-4, we are probably looking 2 or 3, maybe as much as 5 years out before we will see that get going from a production standpoint and we have the opportunity to create a revenue stream from it. Meanwhile, if STP can find a way to actually get their EEZ blocks bid and closed, perhaps we can get around to striking a deal on some blocks to get us more cash and get back into a safe place fiscally, and even perhaps renew the desire (even if it was half-hearted originally) to find a way to get another revenue producing stream. Until then, I just don't see how we sustain any real value increase to our share price. That's the cold, hard facts as I see them, and I agree that isn't exactly the way I was hoping it would turn out.
My biggest mistake with this company was not fully understand African timelines and the multiplier of that by the oil industry. I bought in too deep too early and stopped trading when I shouldn't have, but that's my problem.
The best scenario for immediate shareholder value, in my opinion, is some type of asset selling, either part or whole company, but I just don't see us getting a potential max value before a lot more drilling is done. The GAP - in my opinion - is a myth right now, though it gets closer to a reality with each hole created in our blocks.
So yeah - I feel your pain, but I've made the decision to grin and suck it up. For now anyway.
