Barry Morgan's article out last night. ERHC Up 20% so far today.

JDZ meeting pushed back

The Joint Ministerial Council between Nigerian oil officials and diplomats from Sao Tome & Principe has delayed meeting until the first week of June,
The Abuja-based Joint Development Authority set up to administer the licensing round and allocate ultra deep-water blocks in the Gulf of Guinea was supposed to have made preliminary awards this week but so far only one PSC has been announced block one to ChevronTexaco.

Hopes have faded that block six will be awarded this time round, leaving blocks two and four as the only other two slated to emerge after a bidding exercise that officially put nine blocks on the table.

The latest delay is believed to have been approved to allow more time for the big players to complete negotiations.

The line-up presently tipped to take over blocks 2 and 4 now includes ExxonMobil, which never bid the round and failed to formally exercise its priority rights beyond block 1, US minnow Environmental Remediation Holdings Corporation (which did), ChevronTexaco and Amerada Hess. Anadarko remains in the running but is understood to have baulked at the high cost of entry.

Running parallel to the JDA's decision over the Joint Development Zone is Sao Tome's desire to approve licences for its own Exclusive Economic Zone. "Also being worked on this week" is a multilateral deal to secure key EEZ blocks involving ExxonMobil, ERHC and ChevronTexaco, said one insider.

Barry Morgan

All I can say is you have two weeks to get in. Starting now!

GO ERHC