Monday, February 07, 2005

A.M. Selloff Knocks ERHC Down $0.035 On Moderate Volume; Energy Intelligence Publishes 2 New Reports On Sao Tome

As predicted here yesterday, ERHC fell $0.035 at the opening after a chilly wind of uncertainty blew through the investment community when CEO Ali Memon told shareholders Friday in Houston he knew of no deadline for ExxobnMobil to choose to place its preferential rights and thus trigger awards of Blocks 2 through 6 in the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone.

Meanwhile, the respected Energy Intelligence research service (not to be confused with Africa Energy Intelligence) has released two reports on Sao Tome that may affect ERHC this morning, including one on Sao Tome in general and another on how smaller companies who are seeking blocks in the JDZ are doing more on the Internet.

As promised here on Saturday, the Dow Jones News Service moved a correction to Friday's story about ERHC on Power E*Trade's news screens this mkorning. The news brief said:

As a result of a 1997 deal, ERHC Energy holds preferential rights in six blocks of the Nigeria and Sao Tome e Principe's Joint Development Zone, which is currently undergoing its second licensing round for oil exploration.

(In an item published at 7:02 p.m. and 7:13 p.m. Friday, the number of oil blocks that the company has preferential rights to was misstated.)


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-07-05 0831ET

08:31 020705

No mention was made of ERHC's additional blocks in the EEZ.

By 10:20am EST, 298,620 shares had traded, but the bid had recovered from a low of $0.49 to $0.50. The stock was down $.035 to $0.49 at 9:59am EST. The ask at 10:20am was $0.51. At 10:50am, a single sale was recorded at $0.51. By 11:45am EST, however, the price had fully recovered and stood at $0.525 and an even 100,000 shares traded at that price before the ask fell back to $0.52 at 11:54am. The stock closed at $0.516, down $0.009 for the day, on 815,800 shares of volume.

It remains unclear if Nigeria will go ahead with an offering of its own oil blocks while the awards of the JDZ blocks remains unresolved.

On Raging Bull's ERHC message board, many posters seemed angry that ERHC On The Move provided a warning to investors about today's slide. For large investors, however, today's slide meant a loss of $2.1 million for First Atlantic Bank of Nigeria Plc., more than $7 million for ERHC chairman Sir Emeka Offor, and $3.48 million for the company's Texas-based investors, and for them the warning may have been welcome.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Translation...Joe found some dry powder over the weekend!

Anonymous said...

Joe your Blog is a good contrast and balance to other sources, especially the message boards and chat sites you must wade through to get any solid perspective. Good job and thanks.......

Anonymous said...

The JDA better not give them an indefinite time period. Or we will be hard pressed to get awards this year. And Im not joking.

Anonymous said...

Joe,

Despite the brief drop in share price, no one lost any money unless they sold!! I don't see any reason to talk about millions lost unless your objective was to create a panic. So again, what was your point about indicating the importance of predicting a drop in pps?

Anonymous said...

Nothing but PUMP & DUMP. Journalists are like that in general.

Anonymous said...

Most investors know that you never lose or gain until you sell!

GLTA

Anonymous said...

So, did ERHC On The Move sell "their" shares Monday or did "they" buy more?