Forest and treesSome times we get caught up in the minutia and forget about the big picture. Regardless of whether or not it gets done by the end of the month, the hookup of Athena will get done fairly soon. It is definitely later than many of us that watch the stock day by day would like, but it's by no means a big deal, because eventually we will be producing somewhere between 10k and 15k barrels per day and having over a buck a share of annual cash flow, which will fully justify a share price of somewhere between $3-6/share, depending on how much credit you give management for future prospects coming on line in a relatively timely manner.
If you approach things from a purely number crunching perspective, missing production startup on Athena by a quarter is of little consequence. From a trust perspective, it's a bit more troubling, but management's performance over the long haul (and I've been in this stock for a long time) is pretty good. Personally I would have preferred for them to just tell us there were some possible delays that could push us into Q1/12 for first oil, but again, it's not that big a deal.