Meridian Petroleum PLC : Onwards into 2007/2008

I'm a little worried now. I'm not worried about the long term for MRP, we're nearly 300% up on the year, I'll take that please for the next few years, or as long as you like. I'm not concerned by the further delay either, even though I suspect this placing was "forced" in the sense they had run out of money rather than an intrument of choice as it is being portrayed. At some point the influence of Ensight will be felt on the ground and that should make the failure of TM to deliver significant production from the assets himself irrelevant. Of course he still has another roll of the dice now with Calvin and Orion in January and just like our joke posters here if you make enough predictions then one is eventually going to come right. Ignoring the large assets there is still enough potential in MRP to make it an attractive speculative punt just based on the smaller assets. The larger assets are of course the area where TM can look back at the year and consider himself to have succeeded and congrats to him for that.
What worries me is that TM and BOPD don't seem to have learnt any lessons over the year in terms of dealing with PIs or communicating in general and appear to be becoming less professional rather than more so. This latest RNS poses more questions than it answers, as usual there are selected updates on this or that leaving everyone guessing about all of the outstanding issues. Some of the reaction has as usual been hysterical (in both senses) but to react by repeatedly suggesting PIs sell out gives a very poor impression. BOPD if you can fulfill any useful role for PIs on this board it is to give us some background on issues not covered in the RNSs such as the reasons for delays and the current status of assets not mentioned (whither Milford, EH or the oil plays?). If TM hadn't made promises then we wouldn't be asking questions. The repeated silence on these failures makes every subsequent RNS read like selective wishful thinking. To suggest this board is the reason why the placing is at 18p is pitiful. You are doing the company a disservice by behaving in this manner on the board. I suggest you forget about this "conduit" role as it seems counter-productive. The companies duties are to long term holders, responding to those are trading or patently disinterested in this outlook does no-one any good.