Too many moving parts to estimate timing accurately IMHO, but given govt pressure and xom's desire to get it done, I'll swag it as October this year. I would speculate the minority partners in xom lng - OSH in particular- are dragging it out to secure the best deal they can get. Could be way off base on this, however. We'll see.
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That may be accurate, but again, if some of our expectations regarding timing are too ambitious, I would still suggest that IOC helped make them so. When a company intentionally (and unnecssarily) states that they have an agreement on almost all of the key components of a deal...it helps create an expectation that the deal will be finalized soon". They didn't have to say that. They could have said "we're entering into exclusive negotiations with XOM"...and left it at that.