Unlike some here, I don't believe that hemi was ever a commercially viable company. KA got the leases cheap because they were already played out and nearly worthless. Sure, the floods had an impact: they kept him from milking gullible shareholders for as long as he had hoped. All the talk about leaving the oil in the ground to build up reserves rather than pumping it out to pay expenses was just a ploy to sell shares. Had it been commercially viable, there would have been no need for dilution, period. The few barrels it would have taken to pay expenses and do more shallow exploratory would have been minor compared to the devaluation of the company through dilution.