RE: L53-D2ST3 discovery You said: "I would be very surprised if we do not exit 2012 above $10 per share and still have a small market cap relative to asset potential. But, its quite possible that we will get taken out before then."
I think that with a little bit of luck we should exceed the all time high of $15 per share by year end. It is also too early for a take-out. I remember over a year ago many of us at Coastal Energy were looking for a take-out when it was $5, then $7, then $10, then $15, then $20 but it has not yet happened, although it will at some point. When a management team knows they have winners on their hand, and provided their interests are aligned with those of the shareholders, they are not receptive to pre-mature take-overs, and hostiles are not very common in the areas we operate in.
POE has assembled a number of potential elephants. It has taken them a while to mature the plays to the point of drilling. However, we are now almost there. We have the money and we have the land. There are still operational challenges and, provided they finally negotiate access rights with the forestry company( and they say they are "currently finalizing land access agreements with the surface rights holder") , as you said there is "BG which is Mr Big" in nearby Sumatra, next door to the SINOPEC production.
All we have done so far is drill one target out of 2 (the so called "secondary target") in one concession with 2 other prospects, on the island of Java, next door to the capital Jakarta (and thus no problem with transporting and selling the gas). We are getting excited and yet have hardly scratched the surface. The management team may be not the best in writing News Releases (maybe they should splurge and hire a public relations person), but they are A1 in having assembled one of the best land packages around.
And I would not dismiss the Sawn Lake property lightly. This is not your traditional oil sands project requiring billions of dollars to first production. This is heavy oil, amenable to incremental production increases (a la Baytex, and thus the $19 million price tag for the pilot project, which is fully permitted). Of course, if they dividend this out to us once they re-capitalize it, then POE would not need to be distracted by it. It will be a pure play for us.