Brush Up on the Real PoopWell folks, You have an interesting conversation going on here. First IMO is reacting to the general good feel about O&G. On fundamentals it is getting to a decent valuation with some upside left. The President was heard to state that this was a 1 Billion dollar profit year in 2000. Not bad. Now regarding a merger. The upstream will go first and there are already talks underway. That is where all the redundancy is. There is NO MOBIL downstream to worry about. The upstream will impact Calgary, the field sites and ultimately Toronto. IMOP has 4 refineries in Canada and a mass marketing and retail business. There is unlikely any immediate need to consolidate that into Exxon / Mobil. Once the upstream is completed ( likely a year - three years ) then maybe.. The big brokers in NY were stating 90 days after the announcement or else it will be a while...Likely be a while. In the mean time IMO is a great buy, solid mgt, strong earnings and I would continue to buy on a regular basis and wait...Buyout price would be valued 45 - 49 cdn....But it might not be a cash buyout... You just might inherit stock ???