It remains unclear to me why a transaction like the one being discussed would need to be financed. If it is in fact a real scenario and there is a sovereign nation involved, a cash schedule could be worked out for payment/ delivery. With the cost of goods on the first few billion in sales being so low the cheapest way to finance this would be to take a percentage of the cash upfront with interim payments for partial delivery and a lump sum at the end of the timeframe. If this purchase was scheduled around say the 2013 bonds coming due and largely offset what is due imagine what kind of impact on the share price it might have.

Think cash when dealing with a nation. Now if it were Greece, Portugal or one of the EU countries mired in sovereign debt there would be less to celebrate about. I think Al mentioned it as a small middle eastern country when he first referred to it.