ERHC Energy Inc (ERHE)

[Stay the Course]

Total, Anadarko, Chevron and ExxonMobil:

Serious operating oil companies like Anadarko, Chevron and ExxonMobil develop portfolios with hierarchies of prospects and choose to go after the most promising. Anadarko as much as said so in one of their PRs several months ago when they did not mention the JDZ, and subsequent results in Sierre Leone, Ghana and GoM showed what they had in mind. Chevron has a pretty good portfolio these days, understandable that they are not too enthused over Block 1.

These portfolios get debated and debated, looking at the P10s, P90s and everything to arrive at the most tempting NP10- probability curve. Not a simple black and white simple thing as some posters might believe.

The other factors on their departure would be more difficult to winkle out of them - their expectation of a number of smaller gassy reservoirs in the JDZ, plus indigenous local partners that can be a hassle - not factors that help bring the prospects to the top of the heap.

In my view it is not at all surprising that APC and XOM left and CVX may do so.

Today's Total rumors are very encouraging as they do have plenty of analogues for similar spread out subsea developments in Nigeria and Angola. It is state of the art but not really pushing the envelope these days.

CVX does not necessarily have to take the Total deal, one choice could be to wait a bit and see what develops in the JDZ, if someone else unitizes it or CVX gets asked to come in and do it.