ERHC could not afford for the farm-in negotiations to drag on for a year. However, it shouldn't take that long. The year it took for Caracal/GlencoreXstrata to complete their deal is likely an outlier. Actually, assuming the July 1 date was when they started negotiating (sort of like ERHC's May 6th or thereabouts), they reached agreement on the terms and announced that there was a deal in about 75 days. A similar time-frame would put ERHC at about July 21 or so.