Thanx for that, folks -
I thought the former post was getting long, so I held off on something else that might be interesting to others out there.
If I'm right about the committee being the decision maker, then you can be fairly certain that the meeting to decide has already been held. After all, today is Thursday, the 27th.
Also, the drilling at Grimes was already authorized so, assuming that the two wells (#3 & #4) are likely to be successful, good news could be in the form of nice reports on them. Look for a PR on at least #3 soon. Also, look for a PR on the drilling (not slotting) on the WWNG LOI soon too.
Also, what I wonder, in that they have spun off Tyche & rented hoity-toity executive suite space at the Crescent Court here in Dallas and opened a reasonably priced office in Tyler (east of Dallas, in the heart of the old East Texas oil patch, close to all kinds of energy support infrastructure) is whether it stands to reason to conclude, to murder Shakespeare's Hamlet "they are in blood stepped in so deep that to turn back now is as bad as to go on", by which I mean that it is unlikely that they will NOT fund the LOI. They are in it up to their arm pits and they will make the deal, one way or another.
They had an enormous opportunity in the last two weeks to nudge the sellers, if perchance the sellers have gotten cold feet. This was because, if the LOI formula (which is not public, so I'm speculating here) presumed price projections built when prices were at their highest (July), the seller might have felt it timely to close the deal to lock in that price formula. This presumes the seller would be having cold feet, which, again, is a theory one might put forward as an explanation of why the deal is so delayed.
On the other hand, if the committe is the one with cold feet, it could be linked to the recent down turn in the oil & gas and in the precious metals market. Venture capitalists and hedge funds are kissing cousins and the accelerated decline we all saw in these two markets over the last weeks was evidence that, once a major player had to sell its portfolio at bargain prices to cover its losses (6 billion out of 9 billion, if we are to believe the reports), every other major and minor player quickly joined in in a knee jerk fashion, thereby accounting for the broad-spectrum swoon we saw. The good thing is that stocks like OXY, HL, and VLO held their ground and have declared their bottoms, as it were. Now they are climbing back up.
The unknown thing is whether our particular set of cuddly venture capitalists were financially damaged by the recent downturn AND whether their ability to fund the future plans at BIGN remain intact, unaffected by recent events. We have no way of knowing ahead of time, but it occurs to me that the decision to proceed with this LOI may have been affected by the recent declines. It may not have been, and the already funded work at Grimes certainly was not. But, it may have been, too. It simply crossed my mind and I thought it bore mentioning.
Enough on that. Lots of speculation & general spinning out of control by me, I know. But this board is not just a place to lob grenades... it is a place to float trial balloons. Pop my balloons or add others of your own... whatever floats your boats. Just thought it might be stimulative to speak of what I was thinking.
Thanx again,
Imperial Whazoo