At Last! JDZ Block Awards This Week, Guardian Says ... But.

Nigeria's most professional newspaper, the respected Guardian, says in Tuesday morning's editions that the long-delayed award of oli concessions in the Gulf of Guinea by the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Developmnent Zone may come this week.

The news indicates an end at last to months of waiting for ERHC Energy's preferential rights - specifically mentioned in the article - to be awarded. The company has exercised its rights in all five of the blocks on offer in the current licensing round.

However, the source for the Guardian story apparently misrepresented himself - or was muisunderstood - by the Nigerian reporter as being an ERHC Energy spokesperson.

In the original version available at the Daily Independent, the source said the 30-day period ends "this week," but it ends March 18. The source also is quoted as saying "we gave" ExxonMobil 30 days to exercise its rights, while that period was granted by the JDA.

The source also leaves the impression that ERHC Energy would presume ExxonMobil has no interest in the blocks if it does not exercise its rights by March 18, when in fact that is a decision for the JDA to make.

Finally, ERHC Energy is represented as an American multinational oil firm when it is, in fact, a Nigerian-owned firm with no other assets than its rights in the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone and the Sao Tome Exclusive Economic Zone.

In other words, there's a fly in the soup, and it may cost extra.

It is the second time that someone has approached editors and bolloxed a story on ERHC in recent days. Last week, an ERHC On The Move reader named Arthur Krauser, Ph.D., of Miami, sent a note to Houston Chronicle editors declaring that I had said the paper was running a 2,000-word story on Sunday; that sentence forced editors to look at my article - which suggested the confluence of two articles would raise the share price 27 cents - and they then killed the piece.

While the sentence was accurate, it was ill-thought. On the Internet, I found other letters from the same person asking for investigation of stock scandals and the Depositary Clearing Trust. The author, a psychologist, is associated by Google with a strange Website called corrupted-justice.com.

But today's news, if true and if JDA officials are not enraged by it, could easily mean our share price breaks $1 for the first time since the in recent years. Last year's high, on similar news that led to more delays, was $0.96.

A $1 share price would mean a gain of more than $45,424 for the ERHC On The Move portfolio of 123,040 shares, which has gained more than $19,000 since November 15.

The stock closed Monday down $0.035 at $0.595 on volume of 1,561.702 shares, a substantial dip from last week's trading level.

Here is the Guardian story:

Joint development authority may announce winners of oil blocs this week
by Sulaimon Salau

ABUJA -- Strong indications have emerged that the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Authority (JDA) may announce the winners of five oil blocks put on offer in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) before the end of this week.

Other bidders from the zone had been expecting ExxonMobil to exercise its rights in the five oil blocks put on offer since November 2004.

After exercising its rights in the blocks, the Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) is expected to meet immediately to carry out the final appraisal and announce the result of the bids.

However, the JDZ authorities had weeks ago notified ExxonMobil to make moves within 30 days to exercise its rights to pave the way for the final appraisal of the bids and announcement of the result by the JMC.

According to a source from ERCH, a Nigerian-owned multinational oil firm, "We are waiting for ExxonMobil to exercise their pre-emptive right on any two blocks of their choice and theJDA has given them 30 days to do that," adding that "the 30-day period will expire by the end of next week."

He continued: "If by the end of the period, ExxonMobil does not exercise those options, the JDA will assume they are not interested," he said.

The Joint Ministerial Council, according to him, would meet afterward and decide the next line of action.

Reports showed that a top management team of the American oil giant is scheduled to meet with the Nigerian Sao-Tome Joint Development Authority in Abuja to resolve the outstanding issues in pursuit of its preferential rights.

In this view, the sources said, "ExxonMobil may require more information to take a final decision. This might come after a review of the bids. The meeting will enable it compare note and arrived at a balanced decision, " he said.

ExxonMobil possesses pre emptive rights in any two of the blcoks on offer, while ERHC has preferential option rights which, according to the source, have already been exercised and validated by the JDA.

Editor's Note Certain errors of fact and grammatical and spelling errors have been corrected in this exclusive version of the Guardian story. The source for the story was likely an investor, not an ERHC Energy employee.