Hi Jim;

I think the share price is being held at under $0.50 by the Institutional investors. They dump shares when the price goes up and buy them back at a lower price. If you notice the daily volumes they are very low here on the TSX but over a million shares changed hands last week on the AMEX by the fund clowns with their computerized computer programs.

Like somebody said on the IV board today, Noval got us almost to the finish line running on fumes. CHQ and SNG maybe would have had the funds to complete the 3 wells if the drilling had not had delays due to complications due to losing the bottomhole assembly on one well and having to take the drill out the hole and change the drill bit on several occassions and then sidetracking the well. In a perfect world we would have finished the Endeavour well over a month ago.

On the Mariner well off Nova Scotia SNG's partner El Paso if you recall bailed out when the well was completed and refused to pay their share of the flow test so Noval as operator of the well shut it down because SNG couldn't afford to pay for the flow test alone. The Mariner well was ruled non commercial at the time but there is a lot of oil in the Mariner well and if Noval can get back there with a partner and put development wells into the Mariner pool it could be profitable one day especially if the price of oil goes back over $100 a barrel.

As for Talisman, I have always wanted to buy their shares but Talisman has no focus. Their strategy has been questionable in the past. They got into deep trouble drilling in Sudan (because of genocide in Darfur) and were forced to sell to the Chinese and get out. Now they are planning to drill in Iraq which doesn't sound too bright. Their assets are far flung all over the world in offshore Vietnam, the North Sea, Canada (Quebec shale) , USA, Trinidad etc. They need to find a particular focus and not be all over the place which I believe is one of the reasons why they are selling their Trinidad assets. Also if you look at the amount of oil and gas that they have discovered in Trinidad on the Scotia/Waterous data room their results are not very impressive there and their Blocks will require a lot of money for more development drilling.

Cheers; Scott