MART ... what divvy? We have to be realistic about dividend expectations. Particularly, management will delay a regular dividend because they cannot ensure that a large dividend would be sustainable until :
(1) Mart can announce that Shell will buy oil from them if Mart and partners build a pipeline AND
(2) Agip agrees to increase daily pipeline flow (at Mart's expense for additional pumps), .
The risk is that further pipeline disruptions from explosions or increased siphoning by local RobinHoods could reduce daily volumes below what we have now begun to expect.
I had thought a dividend announcement would have happened by now, but I no longer expect a dividend announcement before June, around the time of the annual meeting (dependent on both agreements with Shell and Agip being signed).
It reminds me of that weird statement by Rumsfeld awhile back, "It's what we don't know that we don't know that can harm us", or something like that.
Here's a comparison of Mart's limited transparency: Ithaca Energy announced about a month ago that they were in discussions with a suitor that wanted to buy the whole company. Their stock went up. In Mart's case, there is suspicion that they will merge with their Nigerian JV partners but they haven't announced it. Their stock has gone down. Some might say their JVs don't want the divvy declared before they have merged, so the JVs will get some of that cash themselves (helping to underwrite a cheap merger).
Now, back to reality ... Mart operates in Nigeria, and that puts certain restraints on how they can conduct business. Nigerian companies have the upper hand in many situations and we who operate in the bright light of the Western world can only imagine the games that are being played with Mart. Strangely, Wade may be one of only a few people who have the insight and cultural training to know how to navigate the bizarre vines that thrive in the Nigerian business jungle.
JMHO,
'peeker
ps> Sorry, got carried away. Maybe this is not the Twilight Zone?