First Week of March

[Getitrt2]

The fact that IOC announced that immediately following the partnering process closing on feb28 that the BoD will meets to select a partner(s): - Phil and the IOC team will be presenting to the BoD March 4 week and recommending a deal. The BoD will see a well worked recommendation. My opinion... - The Process must be worked such that immediately after the selection is made: binding docs can be executed. I can't imagine after all this time that IOC would keep shareholders waiting .. The intent here is to slam the door shut on this phase in the company and move on to the next. Plenty of unknowns (gov't take, structure... im hoping a major buys interest in the field as i think this is most value adding option vs by train) but we will know very shortly. -

Petro, IOC fully expects the winning bidder to buy into the field, the entire resource, which would be the source of the up-front cash as part payment, as well as the first phase of the LNG project;  it's just a matter of what percentage interest.  Given the indication now that PNG almost certainly will not acquire more than the 22.5%, it is likely that resource interest will be larger, probably the same partnership interest as in the LNG plant first phase.