If someone wants to buy Frontera, they are not going to give a single sh*t if 80 million or 180 million shares exist. They will still pay the exact same value irregardless of share count and be done with it.
After having spent over $500 million USD in Guyana with no clear "success", it's evident that Frontera is gun shy and does not want to spend anymore money on trying to add value. Same logic could also be applied to their columbian assets (all operators in Columbia are trading at a large discount due to the risky nature of the country). So end of day, they are blowing their brains out (well majority of their free cash flow) buying shares which ultimately will do absolutely nothing for the share price.
De Alba marketed himself as a saviour of companies and someone who could add value before they were ultimately sold. Based on Frontera's efforts here, it's clear this man is one of the dumbest players in the industry today. Complete joke.
I am mainly CGX and will be the first to admit how horrible their management team is. But man, them partnering with Frontera was probably the dumbest thing they could have ever done. Two loser executive teams destroying value in their own companies one stupid move at a time.