Trading Updates: Awards 'Bogged Down," Lusa Says; Low Volume Wearies Investors

ERHC Energy investors, grown weary of waiting for block awards from the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Authority as Sao Tome's political leaders jockey for power, traded just 134,330 shares in the opening half hour and sent the stock down two cents from yesterday's close.

Update, 6:45pm EDT, 5/12/05: The share price ended the day unchanged at $0.69, the Ask, after trading over a three-cent range between $0.67 and $0.70 during a day of light volume of just 586,489 shares. ADVN counted 134 trades today, with the 2:1 Sell:Buy margin of this morning improving to 3:2, including 230,601 Buys and 332,888 Sells and 13,000 shares unidentified, The day closed with a 10,000 buy at the bell, and the Ask sitting at $0.69.

Meanwhile, we were slow to find a Lusa story from yesterday predicting more delays:

11-05-2005 12:55:00.
Fonte LUSA.
Notícia SIR-6990470
Temas:

Sao Tome: Oil blocks award process needs 'correction', says ousted Trovoada

Sao Tome, May 11 (Lusa) - Sao Tome and Principe's sacked presidential oil adviser says "we all erred" in the stalled process of awarding oil exploration blocks in an offshore zone shared with Nigeria and that the process should be revisited to get "a better deal" for the archipelago.

Patrice Trovoada, speaking at a news conference Tuesday, three days after President Fradique de Meneses dismissed him, criticized the bilateral Joint Development Authority (JDA) that oversees the awarding of five blocks in the latest licensing round.

The JDA, he said, should take decisions based on technical data, rather than in consideration of the political interests competing foreign oil companies.

"We have all erred, but we must make corrections to move forward and stop making noises", said Trovoada, who leads the AID party, the junior partner in the islands' governing coalition.

He called for "a climate of peace and understanding", especially with Nigeria, in order for the archipelago to obtain "a better deal" under the 2001 bilateral treaty that splits revenues from the Gulf of Guinea Joint Development Zone 60:40 in Abuja's favor.

De Menezes, who earlier appeared ready to sign off on an awards scheme approved by the senior Joint Ministerial Council in Abuja in late April, fired Trovoada Saturday as his oil adviser, charging he had used his post to promote his own business interests.

The long delayed awarding of five exploration blocks now appears again bogged down by political infighting, pitting the president against the governing parties, ADI and the senior MLSTP.

The MLSTP of Prime Minister Damiao Vaz de Almeida accused de Menezes earlier this week of seeking personal gain in the process and of possibly holding shares in one of the competing companies, the US- headquartered, but majority Nigerian controlled, ERHC-Energy.

RCN/SAS.

Lusa

Update, 2:22pm EDT, 5/12/05: The price slips to $0.685, the new Ask, as the Bid falls to $0.675 and volume hits 344,004 shares.

Update, 1:38pm EDT, 5/12/05: The price inches up to $0.69, with the Ask and Bid unchanged at $0.68 x $0.69. The volume is 286,894 shares. It's difficult to recall the last time when volume was below 300,000 at this time of day.

Update, 1:25pm EDT, 5/12/05: In just 70 trades by 12:51, ADVFN on a 15-minute delay reports that 92,066 were Buys and 178,828 were Sells, with only 2,000 unidentified. Nine of the last 10 trades were Sells totaling 29,200 shares, while the five immediately preceding those were Buys totaling 34,600. Stock-watchers like myself are falling asleep. At 1:27pm EDT, the current price is $0.68, the Bid, and the Ask is lower at $0.69 on volume of 282,894 shares.

Here's some breaking oil news on the Iraq-UN allocation scandal:

US probe links ex-French minister, British MP to Iraq oil scandal
Thursday May 12, 9:10 PM
Agence France-Presse

PARIS -- A controversial British MP and a French former cabinet minister took huge oil allocations in kickbacks from Saddam Hussein's ousted Iraqi regime under the UN oil-for-food program, a US Senate committee charged.

The committee has "detailed evidence" that Britain's George Galloway and French former interior minister Charles Pasqua received "lucrative oil allocations" from Baghdad, said Republican Senator and panel chairman Norm Coleman in a report.

The report by the US Senate's Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations is based on what it says are Iraqi oil ministry documents and testimony of senior officials in Saddam's regime, ousted in the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Galloway furiously denied the allegations as "a big lie."

The MP, who formed his own political group after being kicked out of Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labour Party for his virulent rhetoric against the Iraq war, won huge libel damages from a British newspaper last year after it made similar allegations.

"It doesn't matter how long you repeat a falsehood, it doesn't become other than a falsehood," Galloway told BBC radio.

"The big lie technique of telling a big lie often enough in the hope that people will believe it is clearly at work here."

Pasqua also denied the allegations.

"In January 2004, and then again in October 2004, I denied having received any advantages whatsoever, in any form, from the Iraqi authorities or the regime of Saddam Hussein," the former minister said in a statement.

Update, 1:00pm EDT, 5/12/05: The price is back to $0.68, while the Bid has risen to $0.685 and the Ask to $0.695, on slow volume of 272,894.

Update, 12:18pm EDT, 5/12/05: The price and Bod. $0.675, are unchanged, but he the Ask has risen to $0.685, on volume of 251.494, a glacial pace.

Update, 11:39am EDT, 5/12/05: The price remains at $0.675, still the Bid, with volume at a low 206,869 and the Ask at $0.68.

Update, 10:42am EDT, 5/12/05: The price is $0.675, the Bid, with volume at 175,229 and the Ask still at $0.68.

Update, 10:27am EDT, 5/12/05: The price is $0.68 and the Bid has risen to $0.675 on volume of 164,755 and climbing.

Update, 10:04am EDT, 5/12/05: The price and Bid are $0.67 and the Ask $0.68 as a total of 141,830 shares trade.