I spoke with Sean Kehoe on the phone for over an hour this morning and for the most part it was a very good conversation. I told him about the one I had with Dan Patience at investor relations, who had absolutely no clue what was going on with the company, and I was happy to hear that he was never being paid by ATK and his name will be removed from the website shortly because he is no longer involved with the company. Kehoe acknowledged the frustration shareholders must be dealing with and apologized and took full responsibility for the Roncott fiasco that ended up costing the company $5 million. He explained what had happend with that well and all the test had it coming on at a 300 barrel of oil a day well until the directional drilling company and then the cement job both completely fudged up and they ended up having to walk away from the well. He says that play is still a strong consideration, but they need to focus more on the manitoba properties to build up more cash. He said that if that mistake hadn't been made they'd be near 600 barrels a day of production and would have saved the money to drill two more MB wells.
He said that almost all the money that has been raised has come from Friends, Family and Friends' families so he definitely has a huge vested interest at getting the share value up or selling the company and he's hearing it from a lot of directions. He said his wife and kids have been buying up shares. I asked why no one on management has been buying and he said that he could not go into too much detail but if they were currently talking to a potential buyer than that would limit their ability to purchase shares.
With regards to why there has not been any press releases or announced drilling plan, the answer is because there is no news to release, and as far as a drilling plan, he is looking at having something in place in August, but not necessarily for ATK to drill, but a plan that a potential buyer can use if the company is purchased.
When I asked him about the bonus and the amount of money he makes off of Atikwa he actually got quite defensive, but not in a negative way, he just said that was the first bonus he had received from ATK, and the salary is basically paying him for all the assets he had gathered and proven personally and moved into Atikwa and that in actuallity he really has not made any money from the company.
He said that he's aware that the value of Roncott and Windfall probably won't be realized in a sale of ATK, so those assets will most likely be moved into a different company and the MB assets sold. From the conversation I would guess that he for sale sign goes up in August and they start accepting bids in September, sort of just a guess but I am reading between the lines a bit, and he said that although they need the price to be above 10 cents to excercise their warrants, he knows that if it goes to a shareholders vote at 8 cents it will probably be accepted and he said he's fine with taking the money and moving on.
Any questions let me know, I didn't cover everything we talked about, but the conversation did make me feel a bit less nervous and I will be buying more at 3 cents.