Ok, I heard back from Riggs. Looking back at the May 23rd press release, it says "With this firm new equipment order, OriginOil will approach its forecast if $1 million in booked sales for products and services in 2011"
In other words, it wasn't a million-dollar deal. It was a large deal moving them toward their million-dollar forecast.
Riggs said it was OK to quote him here. Here's what he wrote:
"Back in May, we announced this large scale deal. It was worth substantially less than $850K. At that time we said "With this firm new equipment order, OriginOil will approach its forecast of $1 million in booked sales for products and services in 2011." So we weren't there.
With the new expanded configuration, the price went to $850K, which put us over the top on 5 August, for a total one million dollar backlog, with cash deposits.
So we got to our 2011 sales forecast in August!"
-------------------------- end of mail
For me, the 1$million figure had been in my head as a done deal. But it was just the forecast. I think that's the source of the confusion.