RE: SP no go up like other oil stocks I don't think bad news is coming, but I think Ithaca is more than fairly valued based on current production looking ahead to exit Q4. Exit Q4 (hopefully 8000 boepd assuming Athena is in full operation) you can justify closer to $2.50, but we're not there yet. $2 is more than reasonable based on Q3 production average which will probably be between 6500 and 7000 boepd considering maintenance, well block, etc. Only good news could be if Athena is magically fixed, which would cause a major pop, probably close to that $2.50 range and I wouldn't expect any move much above that until mid/late 2013. Fact is, we all wanted 10,000 boepd and we're probably not going to get it any time soon. Ithaca's fair value right now, with a downside of 50 cents if oil sinks in September/October and upside of around 50 cents if Athena gets fixed sooner than expected.
Overall though, we're in August and I'm looking ahead to September/October... It would be foolish to expect strong market performance when the odds are against you.
Good to hold a bit just because I love the long-term potential, but I wouldn't expect short-term performance to be great. No bad news coming, but not really any positive news either unless Athena blockage is fixed ASAP. One thing I've learned from watching my favorite North Sea oils is that I should always factor in things 'not quite working out' because that has been this story here, as well as the others. It's North Sea, so I simply expect some sort of problems or complications. In this case, I'm really not expecting Athena to just return to full production this quarter. It'll be late Q4 as they said, and heck, I'll be happy if that doesn't end up being early Q1 2013. But, I could be wrong, so I keep holding a position regardless of my best judgement.