I'm admittedly perplexed as to the lack of share price appreciation in anticipation of a deal concluding in the coming weeks.  I would like to offer the analogy of IOC as a house for sale.   So why would the shorts continue to believe there are no buyers for this house or at least none willing to pay anywhere near full value?.......

1) There is no house.

>For a long time we heard there was no resource.  Just a big scam.  Well, at least that that argument has mostly disappeared.  The fact is there is a house and many industry experts have visited to see it for themselves.  The issue today is how big is the house versus does the house exist!

2) Its in a bad neighborhood.

> Are companies willing to do business in PNG.  Clearly PNG's past corrpution issues and the political upheavel post Somare was a problem.  All is not perfect but O'Neill has been in cleaning things up in PNG and making the neighborhhod much more desirable.  Also,  someone already bought a big house in this neighborhood in the form of the Exxon PNG LNG project.  Additionally, this suburb is located in prime real estate relative to the Asia Pacific LNG market.

3) They're going to change the zoning and not allow anyone to buy the house.

> This concern is specific to the 2009 project Agreement and the threats to cancel the Agreement dating back to the Spring of 2009.  Clealry, statements by O'Neill and Duma make their support clear and the November conditional NEC approval removes any doubt they will approve a buyer as long as the world class operator requirement is met.  Additionally, the extension of E3 signed by Duma was further evidence the PNG govt is working for the best interests of IOC and PNG.

4) The govt is going to take away the House....or at least half of it.

>We all know this is the latest attempt by the shorts to create concerns about the project by suggesting the PNG govt would take an additional 27.5% and significantly reduce the value of the house. However, its been made clear this transaction would take place at commercial terms and now there is great question as to whether PNG will take anything above their 22.5%.

5) Phil's asking price is too high.

>It's long been speculated that Phil was trying to sell a 500k house for 2M or more.  He simply wasnt being realistic and therefore couldnt get a deal closed. First, IOC separated the Chairman and CEO role to make it clear they were serious about closing a deal and the reality is by every metric IOC is incredibly undervalued today.  The fact is there may not be a better value for a SM or anyone else to but than IOC right now

Every argument the shorts and naysayers have promoted has proven to be false. However, skepticism remains about the ability of IOC to deliver a deal of the quantity and quality that will monetize this resource at a much higher value than the 3B market cap currently ascribed to IOC.  AS other posters have articulated, I would be shocked if IOC would release specific timing about concluding the sell down if they didnt have an extremekly high level of confidence about completing a satisfactory deal.  The bigger question for me is still why a SM wouldnt want to buy the whole house and any future expansion versus buying a few rooms.  Compelling value!