First Shot In The Bidding War? Discouraging Posts On I-Hub Had Hidden Agenda

Until he slipped up, the new I-Hub poster Meridian - who claims to be in Abuja and says that ERHC and Chevron are not talking, after all - nearly had me fooled. I detected a cultured African flavor in his syntax and believed he might be telling the truth. It almost seemed that he and new ERHC Energy CEO Walter Brandhuber were staying in the same hotel.

That may be in part due to the odd spelling of "Meridian" - not to be confused with the Le Meridien chain. The Meridian is a 400-room luxury hotel in Abuja, 68 percent owned by the government, where Meridian likely works. The basher Mongo, as many posters will recall, likes to say that ERHC investors get their information from a hotel desk clerk.

What gave him away was a seemingly off-handed comment about Exxon and Chevron "passing millions through Good Works" to Nigerians.

What was implied there was not obvious to most readers, I think. The suggestion in those words is that former U.S. Ambssador to Nigeria Ambassador Howard Jeter, who heads the Goodworks foundation in Washington, was serving as a conduit to government officials and perhaps our own management for funds that are meant to be kept out of sight of stockholders and government reglators - bribes, in other words.

Ambassador Jeter, of course, is one of the two latest additions to the ERHC Energy Board of Directors. And he is a man of great probity who brings enormous good will to our Nigerian partnership and to Africa in general. The attempt to slander him is in keeping with the vicious attacks this company has suffered for more than two years.

What looked at first like an honest statement trying to knock down the unconfirmed talks between ERHC and Chevron was in reality a well-disguised torpedo aimed at sinking our ship - possibly on behalf of Sinopec or another suitor.

It may, in fact, be the first shot fired in the bidding war some believe will develop over ERHC Energy's now-precious rights in Block 2, where much of the oil reserve that Chevron discovered near the midline of Block 1 and Block 2 apparently lies. It was a crafty piece of work.

ERHC is going to be a target for some very smart machers in the days to come. Beware the innocent, the deluded, the naive, the malicious and the deceptive; we'll do our best to help.

Meanwhile, on the Frankfurt Exchange, ERH.F, their symbol for ERHC Energy, was at US$0.8585 and EUR $0.72 on regular volume of 13,200 shares at 11:54pm Tuesday night. That's a $0.025 improvement over the U.S. OTC close. The rate of conversion I'm using is 1.1924.

As befits record-setting day of volume, ERHC On The Move set a recent record for unique visitors today (as of 11:28PM est):

VISITS

Total 80,054
Average Per Day 1,764
Average Visit Length 2:56
Last Hour 83
Today 2,835
This Week 12,349

PAGE VIEWS

Total 112,155
Average Per Day 2,540
Average Per Visit 1.4
Last Hour 127
Today 4,284
This Week 17,783

And, on a personal note, the day trader named Manti
on I-Hub deliberately attributed to me a statement that Addax had already paid ERHC Energy the CDN$18 million due us under the MOU. Being ignorant, he failed to read the post in question well, which says that the money - as the IPO states - "will fund" the payment. Morons like Manti, who also believes I sold him shares on the cheap - which I did not - give I-Hub a bad name.