ERHC Charges Ahead Of Deep-Pocket Partners

A simple graph analysis of trends in the stocks of ERHC and its MoU partners in the Gulf of Guinea oil concession showdown - Pioneer Natural Resources, Noble Energy and Devon Energy - show all four have steadily grown, but that ERHC currently outpaces all of them in rate of growth.

The chart presented some irony, because the three other companies all reported substantial growth, share buybacks and additional acreage and reserves, while ERHC's annual report was most noted for its removal of the "Ongoing Concern" qualification by getting high-interest loans from its chairman.

The chart, first posted on the Raging Bull ERHC message board by one of its most respected posters, balance builder, also shows that ERHC is quite a bit more volatile than the other energy companies, with higher highs and lower lows along a four-year trendline that keeps on rising.

If, as expected, a signing of the Production Sharing Contract for Block 1 is followed by the award of concessions in the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone late next week, the ERHC chart could look far, far better than it already does. The reverse could also be true if there are new delays.

The chart is at: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s=ERHC.OB
&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=pxd+nbl+dvn.

That this could be so despite the fact that ERHC has not earned a penny of revenue in four years and is some $9 million in debt - and is still awaiting awards that have been delayed for more than a year - is remarkable in itself.

The stock surely owes much to two long, in-depth stories, one on Page 1 of the Los Angeles Times on March 24, 2003, and the other on the Dow Jones Newswire on Jan. 24, 2005. Both tell the same story, of a company that became involved early in the search for oil in the Gulf of Guinea, made some early and important deals, and held on through thick and thin as it sought to validate valuable oil rights that could be worth billions of dollars.

But balance builder also had a dramatic retort to two bashers, mongo and monkeytrots, two South African gay men who live together in New York City and were profiled in the New York Times after they furnished their apartment entirely from discarded objects left in Dumpsters and on city streets.

The pair of garbage collectors have relentlessly demeaned ERHC, using expired statements from SEC filings and charges that insiders have been selling the stock. They tend to post many times each day.

Although there have been many shares registered for sale, the reliable MSN MoneyCentral Website "BB" linked to demonstrates that none were actually sold.

In fact, some 60 million shares were transferred to a company that sued ERHC's controlling stakeholder, Sir Emeka Offor, but not ERHC. Offor paid for the shares out of his own pocket, and then acquired 25 million more in a Dec. 24, 2004 rehypothecation of ERHC debt.

Those transferred shares never moved through a stock exchange and are restricted; they cannot be sold for at least a year by the plaintiff in that Houston Federal Court lawsuit, First Atlantic Bank of Nigeria Plc. They represent 9.6 percent of ERHC's stock.

Another person thought to have been a seller, former company spokesman John Coleman, has also hung on to some 5,000,000 shares he owns, the site shows (it lists no sellers, so what it actually shows is a blank space).

The site balance builder posted is http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/
insider/trans.asp?Symbol=erhc.