Well here I am and this F'ing stk hasn't moved a dime for you all. But we will take the gains no matter how they come and my sources are telling me that this is a name that will run because of the naked short situation. I feel twofold, if it's so heavily shorted it's probably crap and two if it breaks $28 here it could easily gallup $10. I'm still in if anyone cares. ~ stoney
This looks good. Nice pull in. @ $25.50 or so $28 is a given with all this short covering and if we break resistance at $28 it's off to the races. ~ stoney
.... Well the stock went on to $84! That's right folks $27 to $84. Wow. I bet you are wondering where I sold out? I just looked it up $68 one of my best trades ever-- big lot -- Now I see it at $50.00. Are any of the smart minds here at ET currently playing this name? I need a unique oil nat gas play for some accounts but almost all are going down. I was going to go the usual NOG BEXP route... but IOC caught my eye again. What say ye? ~stoney
From Investopedia- InterOil Corporation (NYSE:IOC) is a stock that also suffered through a 50% drop despite not being directly tied to the oil spill. IOC has been suffering through its own issues related to its operation in New Guinea, but is experiencing the same type of price action as others in its sector. IOC was trading in a base through the majority of 2010 before falling sharply from the top of the range down through the bottom. It is also attempting to bounce back into the base and should be monitored to see how it reacts to possible selling pressure.
THE PLOT THICKENS... wouldn't you know henry blogget of the interenet days poked his head up and said something about this name today. Thanks to Zhang for sending me this! ~si SEC Has Launched Investigation Of InterOil (IOC) Skeptics And Wants Their Emails To The Media | A A A Share Henry Blodget | Jun. 23, 2010, 9:56 AM | 939 | 7 Flare test at InterOil's controversial Antelope site Image: InterOil IOC Jun 23 2010, 06:40 PM EDT 49.74 Change % Change We've written extensively about controversial oil-and-gas exploration company InterOil (IOC). Some people think the company has discovered highly valuable oil and gas reserves in the jungles of Papua New Guinea and that the stock will continue to be a home run. Others think the company is basically a gigantic fraud. Among those in the latter camp is reformed fraudster Barry Minkow, whose company Fraud Detection Institute sells research to big investors and is now engaged in trying to blow the lid off what he sees as an InterOil (IOC) fraud. Barry Minkow (in earlier days) As the SEC's earlier investigations of shortsellers David Einhorn and Bill Ackman has demonstrated, when a company's stock is performing well, as InterOil's is, the SEC tends to go after the company's critics and shortsellers rather than the company itself--a habit that is bewildering and infuriating to those who respect the fundamental work shortsellers do. And that seems to be what the SEC is doing in this case. At Portfolio.com, Gary Weiss reports that the SEC has subpoenaed Minkow and Sam Antar, another former convicted felon turned whistleblower, to find out what they have been saying about InterOil and other companies in their communications to shortsellers. In a twist that will frighten advocates of free speech and journalist shield laws, the SEC is also subpoenaing communications Minkow and Antar had with journalists. The target of the investigation is a California-based research firm called the Fraud Discovery Institute. [Sam] Antar happens to be friends with FDIâs owner Barry Minkow. And, like Minkow, Antar is a noted whistleblower on white-collar crime and securities fraud. Heâs a former fraudster who masterminded the Crazy Eddie stock fraud in the 1980s. Minkow served time in prison for the ZZZZ Best stock swindle, but now is an ordained minister and preaches the straight and narrow. The subpoenas to both men sought documents concerning companies FDI has criticized, namely InterOil Corp., Lennar Corp., Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc., Medifast Inc., Herbalife Ltd., and Usana Health Sciences Inc. The SEC wants to know what contacts Minkow and Antar have had with a bunch of people on these companies, all apparently short-sellersâhorrors!âbut with three notable exceptions. What gives this little-known storyâhereâs the only press coverageâa strange odor is that the SEC wants to know from both Minkow and Antar what they have been saying to the media. In other words, the SEC appears to be trying to determine whether Minkow and Antar having been spreading lies to the media. In the service of that investigation, the SEC has subpoenaed emails the two have sent to Dow Jones reporters. Importantly, however--and to the SEC's credit--the SEC is NOT trying to obtain those emails by subpoenaing the reporters themselves. The SEC is instead attempting to retrieve the emails to journalists from the targets of the investigation themselves. As Weiss points out, setting a precedent that communications with the press can be used as evidence in an investigation could have a "chilling effect" on people's willingness to talk to the media. But the fact that the SEC is not asking the journalists themselves to give up their sources is an important and welcome factor here. Anonymous sources certainly rely on journalists to protect their identities. Therefore, if it became established precedent for the SEC and other regulators to immediately subpoena journalists and get a full list of their sources and notes at the beginning of an investigation, communications with the press would go into a deep freeze (to society's detriment). But when the point of the investigation is to determine if someone has been spreading lies about a company, asking the target of an investigation to fork over any emails that he or she sent to journalists seems perfectly reasonable. The journalists have not been asked to give up any sources in this case. And if one IS trying to spread lies about a company, sending emails to journalists is probably a good place to start--so it's hard to argue that these communications should be granted some sort of privilege. Tags: Oil, Gas, Energy, InterOil, Litigation, SEC
The street liked IOC @ $70... folks we are going to have to use overhead as sell points because many layers are there... but damn this could pop when God willing that well gets killed and folks settle down about oil. Using $70 as a mark when the street folks bought then at $50... there's $20 a share here folks... I'm talking myself into this... Hummmm. ~ stoney InterOil Offers Vast Potential Companies:InterOil CorporationNewfield Exploration Co.Exxon Mobil Corp. Topics:International BySham Gad, RealMoney Contributor , On Wednesday March 24, 2010, 1:00 pm EDT Investing in an oil company with shares at around $70, or seven times book value and 4.3 times sales, that earns less than 50 cents a share a year, might at best be called an act of faith. Yet, drill a little deeper, and InterOil could make a believer out of you. The heart of this all-in-one oil concern is the remote but resource-rich former Australian territory of Papua New Guinea, in which InterOil holds four prospecting licenses that cover nearly five million gross acres, from which it expects to extract oodles of both oil and natural gas to feed the nearby fuel-hungry markets of East Asia, South Asia and beyond. What's more, InterOil got on the ground in Papua New Guinea early, building good will with the relatively young government -- the country gained independence from Australia in 1975 -- and erecting an enviably complete infrastructure covering exploration (upstream), refining (midstream) and distribution (downstream), which allows it to operate as lower costs, compared with its competitors. This means that everything is set to go once the oil and natural gas starts flow out of the ground, which isn't too far away. Indeed, the location of InterOil's central reserves is a big draw. Papua New Guinea may be one of the world's most rugged and least developed countries, but compared with the Middle East, South America, Africa and reserves deep below the ocean, it's a cake walk. Petromin, the state-owned oil concern, holds a 20% working interest in InterOil's projects, with private investors owning a 20% interest. If InterOil were operating in Venezuela or Russia, partial state ownership might be viewed as a liability. But Papua New Guinea remains a part of the British Commonwealth -- it still recognizes Queen Elizabeth II as the nominal head of its constitutional monarchy-- and has close ties with Australia. Its stable government is staunchly pro-business and eager to tap natural resources to alleviate the country's otherwise crushing poverty. It's worth nothing that InterOil also operates the country's largest refinery and is the biggest distributor of retail petroleum products. As of year end, 2009, the company estimated that it supplied 70% of Papua New Guinea's petroleum needs. The company enjoys other cost advantages. It secured exploration land back in the 1990s, when other oil companies passed the country by. Its Elk and Antelope fields, two of the most promising, hold approximately 8.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 156 million barrels of condensates, according to an independent resource appraisal. What's more, these fields are in the easier-to-navigate lowlands, which is why InterOil has budgeted only $6 billion to $7 billion to develop liquid-natural-gas plants fed by these fields, compared with Exxon Mobil's $15 billion budget for a similar project in the region, located in harder-to-reach areas. In the commodities business, production costs are the Holy Grail. According to Morgan Stanley calculations, InterOil's breakeven costs for its LNG projects were $3.70 per million cubic feet, compared with $5 per Mcf for Exxon's joint venture in the region. Let's also look at the company's fundamentals. InterOil today has the strongest balance sheet in the company's history, with 11% debt to total capital and $70 million in cash against $52 million in secured loans. Within the next five years, the company expects to be producing more than 80 million barrels a year in oil and natural-gas equivalents. It's hard to find relative valuation comparisons for InterOil. Yet, Newfield Exploration, which has some 3.6 trillion cubic feet of natural-gas equivalents in proven reserves, along with rights to nearly five million acres in Malaysia and China, commands an enterprise value of more than $8 billion. If InterOil's two main fields prove even half as potentially productive, its EV of $3 billion looks vastly undervalued, given its refining business, low costs, in addition to the other prospective fields, which could add much more potential supply. The fields, production plants and refineries are also all situated along the coastline of Papua New Guinea, with relatively easy access to ports that can carry the fuel to markets in Australia, China, Japan, India and elsewhere. By the way, InterOil's upside potential has also attracted one of the greatest speculative hedge funds in the world: the Soros Fund Management, which counts InterOil as one of its top-10 holdings.
There is a fun bear case and one Street.com guy disagrees- Analyst Gary Dvorchak, writing on TheStreet.com, says the InterOil story will "end in scandal and losses:" InterOil is valued at $3 billion, mostly because of suspicious gas and oil reserve estimates in its principal plays in Papua New Guinea. The company's exploration and production effort has resulted in no production, despite years of breathless press releases, and most of the supposed "reserves" are even questionable as to their existence or commercial viability. -- Let's look at the red flags that should cause any investor to run for the hills: a lack of results relative to the valuation, suspicious claims on reserves, suspicious behavior of management and the association of known suspicious characters. Felon-turned-fraud-investigator Barry Minkow (who holds short positions on IOC) and his Fraud Discovery Institute says it's all a sham: InterOil has âundiscovered resourcesâ and calling a field âworld classâ isn't the same thing as actually knowing how much of a natural resource exists there. InterOil is capitalizing on the confusion between undiscovered resources (which are unknown quantities) and discovered resources. And the victims are the investors who falsely believe that InterOil has known quantities of natural gas, when in fact they do not. Minkow has an entire website -- www.internooil.com -- devoted to taking down the company. It includes a commissioned geologist's report that allegedly shows "InterOil uses hype and smoke-and-mirrors techniques to bilk investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.â To be fair, Minkow is also paid for his research and often takes short positions in the companies he trashes. Another felon-turned-fraud-investigator, Sam Antar, says InterOil's stock is boosted by a manipulation scheme involving InterOil, John Thomas Financial, and Clarion Finanz AG: I believe that InterOil with the assistance of Clarion Finanz concealed John Thomas Financialâs involvement in helping it raise $95 million through a private placement of convertible debt securities. Clarion Finanz acted as a buffer between InterOil and John Thomas Financial to help InterOil hide John Thomas Financial's role in raising funds. Afterwards, InterOil filed false and misleading reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to conceal John Thomas Financialâs role in helping the company raise $95 million in convertible debt. (Thomas Belesis, CEO of John Thomas, told us in a recent interview that Antar is a liar and an "idiot.") Besides the technical back-and-forth, the debate has sometimes gotten nasty. >>> I find this all very interesting. I've seen there photo of the well and the fire test damn thing looks like it's shooting out... but anyone can photoshop these days... If we trust Greorge Soros we can buy this name. Tomorrow first thing we hit the TA on InterOil~si
Wow my head is spinning. I forgot what a crazy crazy set up this IOC is. On the good side few companies have as high a price target and as low a price as IOC- Here's some Morgan thoughts- April 6, 2010 11:35 AM EDT Shares of InterOil (NYSE: IOC) have moved up sharply in the last few minutes of trading as we are hearing that Morgan Stanley's Evan Calio has named the stock a "Long Research Tactical Idea." Trading in negative territory before the analyst call hit the wires, InterOil shares are now up 4.4% to around $72.81. Calio has been a Pollyanna in InterOil shares for quite some time now; Morgan Stanley has maintained an Overweight rating on the stock since it initiated coverage late last year, all the while raising the stock's price target to a whopping $120. Even with the stock's recent 25% rise from the end of March (in just six trading sessions), Calio's price target still suggests potential upside of about 65%. >>>On the down side they just extended drilling horizontally because " they believe in the integrity of the well " or something close to that excuse... my initial thought is they didn't find what they had been hoping for so drill they must... In my research I came across another mini player down in Papua NG, they are drilling a first well-- lets follow this name because they plan to follow IOC's path to greatness and we would all be getting in at $1!--- lets at least start our due diligence on HDY! Related Quotes Symbol Price Change HDY 1.09 0.00 Press Release Source: Hyperdynamics Corporation On Friday June 11, 2010, 9:00 am EDT HOUSTON, June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hyperdynamics Corporation (NYSE Amex: HDY) today announced that it has contracted with PGS Geophysical to conduct the acquisition phase of a 3D seismic survey on its offshore block in the Republic of Guinea. Following a thorough technical and commercial review of the seven bids received in the May tender, Hyperdynamics awarded the contract to the Norwegian-based firm. The 3,500 square kilometer survey will be acquired over two separate portions of the contract area with the intention of obtaining detailed imaging of the multiple prospects which were identified from the prior 2D seismic data. The cost of the 3D seismic data acquisition is expected to be about $21 million, and work is scheduled to begin in mid-July. Onshore support will be provided by Hyperdynamics Corporation's office located in the Guinean capital of Conakry. "The 3D survey timing keeps us on track to commence drilling of our first exploration well before year-end 2011," Ray Leonard, President and CEO of Hyperdynamics, said. About Hyperdynamics Hyperdynamics is an emerging independent oil and gas exploration and production company that is exploring for oil and gas offshore the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. To find out more, visit our website at www.hyperdynamics.com. Here is another piece This is from StreetInsider (free material) note how 1/2 of CEO pay vests at $9!.... that's the kind of set up you like to see in a microcap. -Geoserve: Hyperdynamics Addresses Valuation and Takeover Questions Hyperdynamics Conference Call Announces First Year Accomplishments of New Management Team; Company Moving Forward, Positioned for Growth More News related to HDY More News related to IOC June 21, 2010 7:30 AM EDT SUGAR LAND, Texas, June 21, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Geoserve Marketing LLC, a private consulting firm led by Michael E. Watts (a former consultant/advisor and a large current shareholder in Hyperdynamics) is continuing commentary regarding the Hyperdynamics Corporation (NYSE AMEX: HDY) shareholder conference call held June 8, 2010. Geoserve believes this call contains detailed information regarding positive developments for Hyperdynamics, and these items should be further shared with interested parties. In the call, the Hyperdynamics management addressed shareholder questions regarding current market valuations and potential takeover concerns. Ray Leonard, President and CEO of Hyperdynamics, commented on insider stock purchases and value by stating that the fact that several of the board members, himself included, jumped in and bought shares shows what Hyperdynamics management thinks of the stock's potential and that the shares are undervalued right now. In regards to long-term valuation, Leonard added that about half of his compensation doesn't happen until the share price hits $9 per share. He stated that the company is putting the basics in place for the share price to move to these levels. Leonard used the example of Interoil (NYSE AMEX: IOC) in Papua, New Guinea, who struggled with low pricing until they hit traction, at which point they got to where everybody wanted to go. He says that management is focusing on the long term for the order of magnitude jump, not short-term pennies. When asked about what has the board done to protect against a hostile takeover, Leonard commented that Hyperdynamics has a very strong board, with experienced individuals who have been through many corporate wars and have considered this possibility. He added that the board is the defender of shareholders' interests. He assured those on the conference call that management has thought about it and would be prepared. A full replay of the Hyperdynamics shareholder call is available at http://www.videonewswire.com/event.asp?id=69567 >>I may be crazy but at first blush I'm leaning towards the $1 stock. I will track it for two weeks and see if it gets any volume and if I like the way it trades.~stoney
Hummm. Found this bit of info on message board about a former employee at HDY... gives pause if they strike it rich APC will swoop in with lawyers... Spear is being sued by Anadarko 20-Jun-10 10:26 pm Apparently Spear somehow obtained Anadarko's proprietary seismic data when he was an employee at HDY. He then used this data to make his case for certain plays in Guinea. Anadarko came to know this because they recognized their own data when visting HDY's data room as a potential JV parnter. No suit has been filed against HDY but at least 3 current employees and one former HDY employee have been deposed in the case against Spear. And yes some of these depositions ocurred while HDY executives were scheduled to be out of the country so they did pay to have the attorneys flown to their location for the depositions. No suit has been filed against HDY and that is why it has not been disclosed by HDY. It appears Spear is trying to implicate HDY in this. You have to wonder if his abrupt departure from the company had anything to do with this.
Boy this stuff never gets old. the company gets it's reply out through a " friend " Probably the Whole Foods ceo... Part I: As a friend of Spear, I must comment on this one in response. The Anadarko case was a direct result of a time during the week of March 22 when current HDY technical staff and RL had brought them in to their office to show the prospects as to a potential JV partner. The Anadarko body of technical experts recognized some of the slides as being part of their own proprietary information seismic information. This provoked the case. Ironically, Anadarko had been into HDYâs office on many occasions back over several years. Spear was not even âon watchâ during this time since his departure had occurred back in January, 2010. Spear had been dismissed on trumped-up charges that he had flown to USA from Oslo, Norway (with visit to BOS on seismic processing matters) rather then fly back into snow blizzard occurring at that time at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. The airport had cancelled all flights. Spear was trying to get back to Houston office and did not see reason to delay his flight when there was no weather problems flying out of Oslo back to States going East and not South. The current technical staff showed information to Anadarko that was always intended for only internal use and RL knew this fact. RL had been (as well as KW) told this as early as September, 2009 in preparation for presentation he used at IPAA meetings and Harry Briers was aware of this. RL continued to use this information for presentation material and still was using this up until the time of Anadarkoâs case surfaced. Spear was not even aware of this fact since he was no longer an employee of the Company and RL had never informed him as such. Part II: The Rodman and Renshaw presentations and IPAA presentations still show Spearâs work. This is still a matter of question on the IV board with reference to the infamous âSlide 11â on many showings as are other slides. As has now been made a part of the deposition and public record, all the prospects were Spearâs work and all the JV partners were Spearâs efforts. This is what KW has disclosed (and what MW knows as has been much discussion on message boards of recent time). The reason for the 8-K was submitted to the SEC two weeks ago follows the deposition of this disclosure. RL is trying to protect himself. All the costs of law firms involved is being paid by HDY for flights to London and back. Spear is having to bear his own legal costs at this time which are enormous. This, in spite of the fact, that he was an officer of the Company and should be covered under indemnification rules by the bye-rules of the Corporation. Spear could not speak since he is under TRO (temporary restraining orders) and TI (temporary injunction). RL is trying to prevent all of this from surfacing for obvious reasons. >>> Yowsa real corporate spy stuff... Well good ole' Interoil is not looking that bad. lets track them side by side for a bit. ~si