Correction:
ERHC was awarded its EEZ blocks February 16th, 2010. In its SEC filing on March 31, 2010 the company had $20.2M.
In ERHC's latest filing they had cash of $7.1M. So the amount of money Ntephe has "burned" since getting the EEZ blocks was $13M, not $35M. Short of firing everyone, closing the doors, and turning out the lights, I don't see where they had the money even then to pay for seismic... and even had they found the money in the couch cusions, the seismic results could have left them with zero cash and worthless EEZ blocks.
IMO, their decision to not shoot seismic was to mitigate risk and bet... yes bet... that a partner with deep pockets would step up to the plate. *So far*, that hasn't happened.
The vesting price of their latest options package comes to mind again.