RE:RE:RE:Don’t take share price drop personally
I think Mr. Wright is an experienced and pretty skilled executive. Certainly the deal that formed TXP would not have come together without him. He kept some cash in the Petrobank shell after the various spin offs and that was used to form the present company. Paul has been pretty much in charge as CEO (I really like him) and Mr. Wright has been more of a supporting character. I would prefer he was not the COB and getting share grants, but that is just me. He probably adds value because of all his long experience.
He is not the only oil executive that got burned back in that that time period. The paragigm about borrowing and taking on increasing debt to drill and drill to increase production did not work when oil prices collapsed, and there has been a major change since then with banks not willing to front that cash for drilling for future production. Companies that are successful are operating within their cash flow and using that to expand, more slowly but with less risk. They really have no option given the change in availablility of bank financing.
My only problem with Mr. Wright was that he was pretty reassuring on conference calls that they had sufficient cash flow to cover their debt, In the end the consortium of banks decided that was not sufficient to extend the credit and the company (LTS) had to re-organize. The fact that he was still in charge of the new reorganized privately held company (just had shed the common shareholders) was a little baffling to me but I am not implying there was anything improper about that. But I did take that a little personally. That is all 7 years ago so I might have some details incorrect - don't hold me to it.
I do want TXP to avoid debt. I don't mind if they slow the pace of drilling until production and revenue are visibly growing. Royston is a big deal and is all funded and will be done within a few months. A discovery there would double the potential size of the company. The development wells can wait until Cascadura and Coho are on-line and producing. The second phase of exploration can wait until the wall of cash is actuallly happening. Even the delay until September in getting the Canadian Rig is okay with me. It will cost $1 million to get it to Trinidad and then they have a contract to pay for it 120 days each year for three years. I want the wall of cash to pay for it.