Monday, November 07, 2005

JDA Wants It Both Ways; Investors Do, Too

The Joint Development Authority of the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone has done it again: They have posted two "Timeline" statements for PSC signings with two different dates for the event.

In one, newly located on the site's homepage (www.nigeriasaotomejda.com) they say the signings will be next week; in the other, on the Press Releases page, they say it will be this week.

They have also removed the press release concerning their acceptance of the Addax/ERHC Energy consortium to replace the Noble Energy/ERHC Energy partnership that won operatorship in Block 4.

It is our intuition that there is trouble in River City, but that's just us.

Like reading tea leaves at the fortune teller's or chicken entrails at the Temple of Apollo, the JDA Website is the product of a Sphinx-like mentality that aims to keep the truth from investors by providing them with utterly ambiguous information that cannot be relied on for accuracy or meaning.

It may be that the transAtlantic dealings required to change the Website (which is controlled from London) have accomplished part of a task but not all of it, or that the entire Addax deal has fallen out of bed. All we can know is that we do not know.

In response, the market carved $0.03 out the share price in early trading Mionday morning, but gave it back before 10am and then started taking it again, albeit more slow.

The stock is currently at $0.385 Bid and $0.399 Ask, up from the $0.36/$0.38 open of $0.365. Purchases totalled 76,375 shares and sales totalled 180,000 shares at 10:24:52am. Note: We inadvertently recorded sales from Friday's trading here in an earlier version of this post at 10:08. We regret the error.

Volume stands at a healthy 531,921.

No comments: