RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is Furthermore your statement about "no major would buy-in because they can buy producing assets." Yes indeed they can. But even in this seriously deflated commodity market, good producing assets are still going to cost them 100s of millions of dollars, half a billion to a billion. This stock is at roughly ~$25MM. It's called risk vs reward, major producers can shell out a few bucks to buy out this company at $50MM-$100MM to have a chance at 10 times their profit. Desperate times sometimes require desperate measures and many medium-sized producers are severly underwater and risks need to be taken. Some companies may be forced to take the risk to receive a substantial return because its either that or continuos negative returns. Buying expense already producing assets will cost too much and honestly is a risk in itself because of the cost and its revenue isn't guaranteed either because prices of commodities could go lower and several "decent" producing assets may be useless in the future (which has happened multiple times). This company, while not guaranteed to go to production due to permits, will be guaranteed to turn a profit regardless of how low commodities go.
So in summary, this company would be a hedge against price risk but has the risk of not getting permits vs. a major producer which would provide current streams of revenue but has price risk.
Buyers can either choose price risk vs. permitting risk, only the risk of the latter comes at a cheaper buyout price and has less to lose unlike the high cost of buying a producing asset