I think you guys are saying the same thing. That is, the company is as valuable as the sum of it's parts. Where you disagree is merely in the measure of value that can be assigned to the components. One of you is saying almost all of the value now (and into the near future) is in one of the components, while the other is saying that's not quite so.

"You said something to the effect of an expanded share base possibly being a good thing. I didn't really think of it as a good thing, so I would be very interested in hearing your rationale."

Management could be thinking that the sooner they can finance their own project as a 100 percent owner, the better off we will be. If so, that may mean having the availability of billions of shares to sell could be a means to that end, but this does not mean, necessarily, that billions of shares would have to be sold, suddenly dumped on the maket. I would envision this as something incremental, and only as progress warranted (and then at progressively higher share prices). With good results along the way, only a fracton of the proposed billions of shares will have to be sold.

Were we living in the financial environment of 8 or so years ago, money could be borrowed to advance projects, but such is not an option for exporation companies these days, and especially those with no announced "discovery" (something that only comes from drilling).

VP in warming AZ (where our very much longer than normal spring just disappeared)