There is a lot of pure speculation and dreaming taking place on this board in terms of a takeover by Nexen of Connacher and OPTI or a merger between the three of them which defies all rational logic. Evidently, with the lack of new news, posters are letting their minds run wild without looking at the facts.

The following information on OPTI comes from its most recent Press Release of February 25, 2009: http://www.opticanada.com/common/upl...

Fact One: OPTI is currently experiencing problems in its operations it stated on page 2: "The Upgrader is currently gasifying but not producing PSC [Premium Sweet Crude] due to issues with water supply and treating but is expected to resume production in the near future. Essentially all of the PSC produced to date has been used as diluent."

Page 3: "We expect Upgrader capacity during ramp-up will be capable of processing all of the forecasted SAGD volumes and we expect the Project to reach full capacity of approximately 58,500 bbl/d of PSC and other products in 12 to 18 months." So it will take a long time for the Upgrader to be able to fully process the amounts of bitumen that OPTI is currently producing from its SAGD operations to fully supply its Upgrader. When this occurs there will be no room at the Upgrader for any of Connacher's bitumen,

Fact Two: OPTI already has vast quanties of its own bitumen bearing lands and has already preplanned six development phases which they are in the process of implimenting as they have already received Alberta government permission to start with Phase two. There is no room or need for Connacher's existing production or reserves here.

Page 4: "OPTI has a significant presence in the Athabasca oil sands, with a 35% interest in over 385 sections of land on three leases. Long Lake, Leismer and Cottonwood. We beleive our existing lands will support approximately 360,00 bbl/d of PSC production (126,00 bbl/d net to OPTI) from six phases including Long Lake Phase 1."

Fact Three: OPTI's Upgrader uses the OrCrude process combined with commercial hydrocracking and gasification. This gasification process as a byproduct of the Upgrader, replaces the natural gas which OPTI burns in their SAGD operations thus significantly lowering their costs of liquifying the bitumen. The Upgrader when it is running at full capacity will produce enough gasification to be used by OPTI's SAGD operations. There will be none left for Connacher to use to burn instead of natural gas. So right here its a comparison of apples and oranges as OPTI's SAGD production model is very different from Connacher's production model.

Fact Four: OPTI has a huge debt level so they cannot afford to buy out Connacher in fact when Connacher gets Algar up and running, more likely Connacher would be subsidizing OPTI's debt. OPTI has far to much debt to be bought out by Nexen, otherwise Nexen would have already bought OPTI lock stock and barrel instead of just the 15% that they recently bought from OPTI. Nexen's recent purchase of 15% of OPTI was a smart move by Nexen as it meant that OPTI was left with the debt that it has run up which Nexen would have had to assume if it bought OPTI outright.

Page 13: OPTI lost $257 million dollars in 2008 or $1.31 per share basic and diluted and had total long term liabilities of $2,656,000,000.00 dollars.

Page 14: OPTI has 195,929.526 common shares as of January 31, 2009.

Fact Five: Nexen is playing it safe during the perfect economic storm and is husbanding its resources and is not rushing its oilsand projects. Nexen states in its 2008 Report http://www.nexeninc.com/files/AGM/ne...

on Page 33: "While work will continue on Phase II [Long Lake] , we will wait to sanction it until at least 2010. By then we should have greater clarity on a number of fronts: Phase 1 performance, the economic environment and proposed climate change regulations."

Fact Six: Nexen has been touted by analyst's as the next take over target in the oil sands as it is a very well run company.

Personally, as I have stated before I do not see Connacher as a takeover target due to its high debt load and it's integrated production model which were purposely devised to mitigate against a takeover or even merger from Connacher's inception. Connacher as well has purposely not undertaken an extensive drilling program to reveal vast bitumen reserves but rather has sought to drill up and verify its reserves on a need to basis for its existing projects (POD 1, Algar, & EIA). To a buyer or partner Connacher therefore has limited proven reserves at this point in time......the rest is caribou pasture.

Best Wishes; Scott