I've heard gossip that a major reason for the delay of the Olmos...

I've heard gossip that a major reason for the delay of the Olmos sale (which was finalised in March this year) was the fact that the leases needed to be effectively strated or layered so they could sell simply the Olmos layer and retain the rest.

Reasonably simple in concept but then you start thinking about the number of landowners that they had to get to resign and its starts to suck time a bit.

Throw into that mix one old Texan landowner that rarely did phones and certainly not "that new fandangled email thingy" plus he took about three weeks to respond each time he was asked a question and I can kind of understand how delays could add up ...to an extent.

What absolutely dumbfounds me though is .. if that is true ... then why didn't TXN simply announce something simple? Like "we're waiting on landowners".

Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't see how it would give the landowners any commercial advantage?!And I'd have thought the market confidence would be greatly enhanced if they had.

In the current circumstances the reason for total lack of disclosures is continually given as "heavy confidentiality agreements". Fine ... to a point. Given the length of the current delays I'd have thought we went past that point a while back though.

I'm a big advocate of TXN management's ability to find and drill decent prospects, and still believe the value of the asset TXN is sitting on is greater than the current market cap but I wonder why TXN thinks disclosures should suit the lowest common denominator rather than pumping out the best quality info they can.

Maybe "Investor Relations" is a dirty word?