RE: My "Take" on Orko Ralph: I think your thought process on this is sound. Hats off to you for selling half your position at $3-wish I was smart enough to do so.
A couple of other thoughts. It's been bantied about here that the PEA related work Amec is doing for Orko will not be completed until June/July. Unless someone has confirmed that with Orko, I don't believe that is the case and it could be completed any time.
That being said, I think it's likely PAA drags this out to July, if they indeed still have interest at this stage, in the hope that they can buy Orko on the cheap. Not sure that it is a good strategy or that it won't backfire on them, particularly if silver starts to break out, which appears to be a possibility after today.
If they have no interest, then I'd expect to see open season on Orko after April 12th. But if what Orko has said about PAA drilling the Orko property at this time is true, then that would not appear to be the case. I wouldn't read too much into PAA's statement about no "further aquisitions" as this may well be more of a semantics issue than anything else; PAA could still go after Orko and say it is not an aquisition but simply a project that's been on their books for 3 years.
If PAA does come forward, though, I see them trying to drive a very hard bargain based on 1) their peformance so far in the JV and 2) their recent deal with Minefinders. If, for some reason the deal with Minefinders does not go through then I see Orko as being perhaps more valuable to them but if that goes through, the prospects for a predominately paper deal from Pan American (whose paper is not doing that well these days) are high if they come to the table.
But in the end, I really think the chances are high that PAA does not end up with Orko. Orko management seems to be confident that the company is worth $4-$5 share plus and my guess is that to this point, behind the scenes if there have been discussions Orko has not blinked yet and PAA doesn't want to pay that.
Ultimately the market will establish the price If there are no other suitors Pan American may get their way, but, as I said, I don't think that's likely. Chances are OK is dead money until July, locked in a fairly narrow trading range unless the general market really gets clobbered. Problem is the end game can come any time between now and then and it could be fast. Risk/reward seems to be awfully good right now-I would increase my position a bit if I had some extra cash but OK is a fairly large position for me and I'm tapped out right now. I just think it's dangerous to be out of the stock at this time considering the risk reward and how quickly things will unfold when it does happen.