"Would a buyout not theoritically be good for us holding the stock?"

Depends, say Exxon bought us today for $4.50 a share, while that is a nice bump over where we are today it would kill future growth. If CLL hit 50K per day it would not make much of a dent in exxons overall #'s (mulit billion dollar firm). However if CLL was prducing 50K a day and still private we would be well over $10 a share (hard to figure exact without knowing oil future prices).

So short term it would be a bump, long term it would dilute future return