RE: Outstanding questions You asked some very interesting questions. This is my understanding:
1) Line losses were 18% - up from ~8% previously and 10% budgeted. How/why that happened is a mystery. MMT is requesting back up documents from Agip.
2) Total production expenses were meaningfully higher Q over Q. Rose from $6.9MM in Q1 to $9.2MM in Q2 - and were unexplained (no notes/comments in the financials that I saw). With falling volumes, unit costs rose substantially.
3) MMT gets less than Bonny as their realized prices include cost of transportation. For example, realized prices in Q1 were $115. Bonny was roughly $9 higher.
4) Cost oil is being deferred for 90 days for U10. That indeed allows partners to raise more cash internally. But once a merger takes place (assuming it does), we get a larger dividend - that money is merely deferred, not lost.
The consequence of that bargain is the rig keeps drilling, more reserves are proven up with more production is behind pipe. That more than offsets cost of deferring cost oil a few months. (U10 is expected to increase net reserves ~15%, adding roughly $100MM in NPV - not bad for a well that costs MMT ~$7MM net).
Remember, since drilling requires approval of all the partners, the partners could have stopped drilling to minimize cost oil recovery to MMT (and maximize oil to them) until new pipeline capacity becomes available. But with drilling continuing, MMT will have substantial behind pipe production available as soon as the new pipeline is operational. On DCF basis, that's vastly preferable outcome so long as the pipeline is indeed built by end of 2013 as expected.