“BS reported that Petronet LNG, which is the country’s biggest natural gas importer, plans to go upstream through acquisition of stakes in gas fields in Papua New Guinea and Australia in partnership with ONGC. ... The due diligence at both these locations is over... PNG is said to have 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas resources and aims to become an important LNG exporter.” In October ‘08, it was reported that “PLL has completed the study of seismic data of the assets.”

So the seismic was shared months ago with interested bidders, the resource potential is not a well-kept secret, which is why 50 bidders representing the world's largest o/g and utility companies are in the bid for a slice of IOC. Competition not only includes multinational companies, but nations, including Japan, India, China, the latter two with the largest populations in the world, the greatest energy security issues in the world based on population and environmental pressures alone, not to mention the underlying, steaming nationalistic ambitions that have driven them to be commercial and military antagonists for centuries of time. They know each other; don’t like each other; fear each other; don’t want to be energy-demand beholden to each other. Their nationalistic, energy security eyes must be rolling at the opportunity of claiming 30tcf of ng.

We are told that “7 -12 tcf will support a LNG plant for 25 years.” Do the math for 30tcf. As I have said before, this isn’t just about energy supply, which alone is enough to send bidding through the roof, but about power, position, national security, prestige. The winning bidder wins the ability to be the Asian Pacific provider; the loser, the ignominy of an Asian Pacific beggar, hoping the provider -- China, Japan, India -- will throw the loser LNG supply over the next four decades at reasonable prices when energy demand is soaring because of teeming population burdens, clean energy manufacturing demand, wartime disruption, for these will fully value what it means to be the provider of 30 tcf of PNG gas, not the beggar. In today's news report, India stated its PNG investment is to get gas to India. Fine. But China wants to get PNG gas to China; ENI, PNG gas to Europe; Japan, PNG gas to Japan -- and each wants to have that PNG 30tcf that can fuel the entire Asian Pacific doorstep, not to mention Europe, and at their price, not their rival's.

None of this is represented in the American shortsighted valuation of this $32 stock, for Americans view next week as long-term. A put here, a dip in, a dip out, a short in, a short in bankruptcy -- these short-minded fools claim to have the' tools to be the masters of the investment universe. But trading games are already showing tattered returns against IOC, for they are betting on a midget while 50 gargantuan bidders are betting on a Goliath. And once the winning bidders are announced, at the price these gorillas bid IOC's resource at, they will find that those with the long-term focus have been seeing IOC on a different plane, not just for the resource, but for the the power, the position, the prestige, the nationalistic accomplishment, the LNG, the geographic dream, the clean energy supply that is a part of the IOC bidding mentality right now. And some are likely buying IOC stock right now, knowing the valuation that is about to come, that even if they lose in bidding, they can win with the stock. They can count on our short-sighted American "Masters of the Universe" to play their little games to drive the stock down from time to time, those whose short-term trading majesty recently tore our nation's financial system to near ruin with their blindness for the short-term buck, so now they bet against IOC, valuing as a sow's ear what 50 world-wide gargantuans know to be a ton of gold. As before stated, the short finds himself clever to short IOC, not seeing they are shorting the likes of China.