Had a long, friendly conversation with Deborah Buks Friday afternoon. Not much new info however.
She was definite about the rationales for not giving out information or promoting ERHC at this time. They are the following:
1) Any pumping of ERHC and our possibilities in the GOG would be subject to review by the SEC Attorneys and probably not pass their criteria. ERHC wants to keep itself "clean as a whistle" and not invite any SEC probes.
Other companies which do pump up themselves and the possbilities of the JDZ are probably not United States companies registered with the SEC. (Me)eg Centurian Energy is a Canadian Company and EEL is registered on the AIM in England.
2) There are definite and strict confidentiality agreements between the designated operators of a block and all their minority partners. Hence, ERHC is limited by confidentiality agreements not to discuss terms, possiblities or progress of the PSC/JOA negotiations.
I asked about CEO Sheffield of Pioneer openly discussing the potential barfels of oil, low risk and personal excitement about Nigeria deep ocean and JDZ blocks. She responded that the operator has that privilige and is supposed to be the one who can tout or publizise the possiblities. Minority partner companies such as ERHC are bound by confidentiality agreements.
3) The negotiations are ongoing. Parts of the negotiations could be delicate. The last thing ERHC would want to do is make a public comment or issue a press release that could upset the major partner of a block.
On the plus side, she told me that he has prepared and re-prepared copis of press releases for when the PSC/JOA contracts are announced. She has put a lot of effort into what those releases would say. However, they have to be released at an opportune time.
I asked her about plans for annual meetings. She said that has been discussed with the company, but no definite arrangements have been made.
Closer to the present she and others have been planning electronic media communications and considering the costs for web casts of conference calls.
As far as she knows the PSC/JOA talks are on schedule. She told me to refer to the schedule to predict when definite events would occur.
She added that the JDA formulates and publishes its own schedules and any changes in schedule would come directly from the JDA.
I did not ask about the Sao Tome inquiry, but I strongly doubt she would have commented.
She knows people are annoyed or even angry with her over the lack of communicaions, but she repeated that then the time is appropriate informaion would be fothcoming.
She was definte about not giving me any hints or information about progress or events in keeping with the above guidelines.
I am not expert on the above procedures and guidelines. If anyone is expert, do feel free to comment.
AI
