Update: 270,000 shares moved in 10 trades at $0.49 before the opening bell. Pre-market trades of any quantity are rare for ERHC.
Update, 9:31am EST: 625,000 shares moved by the first minute of trading.
Update, 9:35am EST: 944,509 in the first five minutes, mostly at $0.51.
Update, 9:38am EST: 1,194,909, mostly up $0.03 at $0.51, in eight minutes.
Update, 9:40am EST: 1,208,409 at $0.51 in the first 10 minutes.
Update, 10:05am EST: 2,442,922 have moved, and ERHE is now at $0.515.
Even though this is the third announced deadline, the JDA is likely to meet this one, having got most of its major business out of the way. The only wild card in the deck is the deuce of 25 percent preferential rights dealt to ExxonMobil. A delay in exercising those rights on XOM's part could snag the process again, but none is anticipated.
A caveat: the unanticipated happens often in Africa.
Volume should be substantially higher than last week and should climb through Friday, the last day of trading before the referenced "end of the month" on Monday, Feb. 28.
I expect the news - good, bad or indifferent - to filter down slowly, as it usually does, and then gain strong momentum as new buyers move into the market.
Just the same, the stiock may open a half cent lower today as short sellers and others play their game, but ERHE should be well on its way to a February high by noon. Day traders should be in abundance by then, and 3 million shares should trade. Look for 7 million by Friday, and a similar or larger number on Monday next.
I also expect a minimum gain of four cents on Tuesday, and a maximum of eight cents. The good news is that the same gains could be repeated tomorrow and Thursday. By Friday, I expect that more breaking news will create its own paradigm. Gains could skyrocket, depending on the dominant rumors of the day.
With our recent major coverage, awareness of our prospects is at an all-time high, and that should be to our strong advantage in the rumor mill.
Nothing is guaranteed to anyone with respect to the awards themselves. While I believe we will win big, I could be in for a nasty surprise when the envelopes are opened; meanwhile, I look for every possible sign and omen in the press here and abroad and even in the tenor of discussions on RB, but I play the stock by the news that counts - the Reuters, Dow Jones, Lusa, AFP and AP stories that will detail the winning bids.
As always, there may be mistakes in the first reports that will initially hurt morale.
If the AP gets the story first, it is likely to drop ERHC's name in ERHE's Devon Energy/Pioneer Natural Resources (Blocks 2 and 3) and the Noble Energy (Block 4) consortia because it has never written a word about us.
The same is likely to be true of of the Portuguese reports from Lusa and French reports from the Agence France-Presse, but we can expect solid facts from the Vitrina and Tela Non Websites - if they are updated.
All-Africa is unlikely to have early reports. The Nigerian newspapers, too, seem incapable of covering the awards in a timely way and may well tip us early to bidders whom they favor, especially Conoil, rather than those who have actually won.
Reuters and UpstreamOnline are better than 50 percent likely to get the results right the first time.
Our best bet is for a wide-ranging and very accurate release from the Dow Jones News Service, which by now is certainly on the alert for errors regarding ERHE.
One lingering possibility is that the name submitted in our bid to the JDA is the one that will be announced, and if that is the case, there will be a delay in press coverage and as investors search out the defunct Environmental Remediation Holding Corp. name and find the ERHC Energy symbol, ERHE.
However it turns out, this is going to be a very exciting week. The last day of the month is next Monday, just five business days from today, and the action will be non-stop. Stay tuned.
To bring new investors up to speed, here is the Reuters story that ran yesterday about the awards process. Note that the percentage options exercised by ERHE in the first round were not identical to those in the second round, with the major differences being in Block 2 and Block 9. Here is the story:
ExxonMobil gets oil rights in Nigeria/Sao Tome zone
Reuters U.S. Company News
11:52 a.m. 02/21/2005
ABUJA (Reuters) -- ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) received approval on Monday to exercise its rights in five offshore oil blocks on offer by Nigeria and Sao Tome to pave the way for final licence awards to be made, the bidding authority said.
The exploration blocks are located in the Gulf of Guinea, which has seen a swathe of huge deepwater oil discoveries over the past decade and could provide the United States with a strategic supplement to its energy supplies from the crisis-ridden Middle East.
The U.S.-based energy giant has a right to a 25 percent stake in any two blocks in the second bidding round which began in December, the Nigeria-Sao Tome Joint Development Authority (JDA) said in a statement.
The JDA received bids from 23 firms for five blocks in the deep waters shared by Africa's top oil producer and Sao Tome, a tiny, impoverished island nation taking its first steps into the world of big oil.
"As soon as ExxonMobil exercises its options, the JMC (Joint Ministerial Council) will be convened to approve the final structure of the award of the blocks ... This is expected to be done before the end of the month," the statement said.
ExxonMobil and a little-known U.S.-based firm ERHC Energy (ERHE) enjoy pre-emptive rights over the equity because they invested in exploration under a deal with the tiny island state before the disputed area became a Joint Development Zone managed bilaterally.
When the two countries agreed in 2000 to jointly develop the area, the two companies renegotiated their deals with the JDA and gained the rights.
Last year, ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly quoted oil firm, exercised a 40 percent interest in block one, the most sought-after of the nine blocks offered in the first licensing round.
Houston-based Environmental Remediation Holdings Co., now renamed ERHC Energy Inc, took a 25 percent interest in block four, 20 percent in blocks three and nine, and 15 percent in blocks five and six before the first bidding round which opened in 2003.
ERHC Energy now has a bid for a 30 percent share of Block 2; Block 9 was not offered.
2 comments:
Once again ERHE longs are looking foolish. Their over exuberance is comical. Some were predicting a run to .70 or higher today. And for about the 100th time they are wrong. 3,000,000 shares traded and the stock is up about .02 cents.
Of course if someone had said that yesterday on the RB board that the price wouldnt move much today they would have been attacked.
The only thing that will drive the share price are the actual awards. DUH
Joe's prediction of between four and eight cents was exactly right - 6 cents. Not bad.
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