Here is a thought from left field...and feel free to be critical...

Here is a thought from left field...and feel free to be critical of my reasoning. A competitor of Shell could still acquire the shares of New Hope which would cause the takeover to be aborted. Apparently New Hope have not yet sold their shares to Shell / Petro China, but have agreed to do so subject to there being no better offer. Surely such a move for the shares of New Hope could be made with a view to having some control over the reserves of AOE and at the same time blocking the Shell / Petro China project proceeding...no better way to achieve this than playing a few short positions, then pulling them to watch the AOE SP run temporarily and see New Hope sell to someone else, with the buyer not even paying the premium when it uses the profit from the short position to cover the spread...mo.

For this reason, I'm out. Oh, and I look forward to perhaps taking a short position on Dart, when it lists of course.

WU