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Read Gozo's post duster.

Colin's a Chartered Accountant. He should be aware of all that. Market value looks very poor.

Looks like a lot of letters missing from 'with respect to' as well.

Indeed WHYAST. They were trying every way possible to stop this. The 'preliminary screening procedure' covers everything. Although it would also mean an EIA, but not only an EIA.

Throughout the years the issues have been confused and misinterpreted. Even the Court in April 2016 should have allowed AST to retain the IPPC as it had been issued under the previous rules which the new rules stated stated should be the case. That is any permit issued under the previous rules or even under application previous to the new rules would be considered under the old rules and not the new rules.

RNS 6th May 2016: "The reason given by the Court for this decision is that, after the original application was made in June 2014, the relevant law was changed and the process that was followed did not accord to the new law. This is despite the new law explicitly stating that any applications submitted (but not yet resolved) prior to the effective date for the new law should be pursued exclusively under the old rules".

The tweet was put out by the Minister knowing an official response would not be available until Monday. What is Colin to do? Wait till Monday while his world and the SP collapses around him? Or be proactive? Not sure what you'd have him do? Nothing? Or sit back and just tweet everything fine and dandy and let's just wait till Monday? And the market will just accept that?

We don't have the luxury to be against the dilution. In principle it's not good. In reality it's the only option. Or the company may go under.

RNS 14th March.

WHYAST, You appear to be conflating two issues there. The appellant was using all kinds of spurious reasons to prevent AST from accessing the gas at all. They were found to be vexatious by the Court and the appellant was prevented from appealing again last November. That didn't prevent an EIA happening in itself but that was agreed, around January, not to be needed but just some soil samples along with a baseline survey report were required (http://www.lse.co.uk/share-regulatory-news.asp shareprice=AST&ArticleCode=00u2l4c9&ArticleHeadline=IPPC_Permitting_update).

I would prefer to look at it as Colin being proactive, rather than just reactive. He reacted to what was an overall accurate news report as the Minister had definitely tweeted this stuff himself about the possibility of insisting on an environmental impact assessment, when it had been agreed months before that it wasn't needed. If Colin had done nothing at all I'm sure you'd be bleating about that now.

Agree again WHYAST. Monday's reaction from the Minister and ARSO will be the key.

A reasonable contribution from Colin and the BoD would increase morale in investors of AST. It would show confidence in actions and not just the words and intentions. For them not to invest now would show they have no confidence in where this is going.

Jure Leben tweeting about using candles at grave sides causing more waste. Most replies are sarcastic comments about lighting even more candles or attacking him for his grammar in the tweet. That must make it even tougher for google translate. :-)

Have to agree WHYAST. This is becoming dangerous for AST. As an accountant I would have thought Colin would have taken the cautious approach and got out of Slovenia at as good a price he can get. Maybe the low offer from INA was rather too low? Like 0.5p? With them knowing the situation Colin is in that could have been a likely move. This latest RNS shows Colin and AST have some fight and a fund raise would keep AST solvent. INA could then look at a better offer.

The tweet followed by going on a national holiday is very unprofessional.

So just how much strength have we got to insist on conditions? I would suggest none.

It will be put to us that either we allow a fund raise or the company is very likely to go under. Your choice.

As I have said the RNS states that one of the companies in the SR needs to make an offer which would be more acceptable to shareholders. That implies a low offer has been made. They can't say in an RNS as the conditions of the SR include confidentiality.

CH has a little more information than a news article. He's had no response from the Minister even though he's tried to contact him. The response he has had back from anyone in the know in ARSO or whoever has not been helpful. The Minister has done this and then gone on holiday, out of contact. We all know what is happening when someone in that position doesn't want to contact you because if they do want to they will be in touch immediately.

This is the only sensible way forward until the Slovenian Environment Minister sees sense, the permits can be issued and then the SR can be concluded. The "one option" in an advanced stage is most likely to be INA. It would appear they have intimated a low offer already as quote: "further work remains to be done by the counterparty to create a proposal which could be reasonably put to Shareholders".

This RNS looks like reasonably good news before the Minister and Slovenia return to work next Monday.

No doubt there is a greater risk now and that is reflected in the SP. However I don't believe the Slovenians are looking to bankrupt AST. That would have the dual effect of creating a massive deterrent to other foreign investment in Slovenia and would set back the current position that AST and their partners have achieved to date.

Common sense should dictate that AST and partners are retained, are checked thoroughly in the environmentally safe way they go about accessing the gas and, without doubt, will milk AST and partners in taxes to pay for any detriment to the environment or to actually improve the environment. However governments don't always act with common sense.

Gerry, And <0.4p should be a better time to buy with the usual bounce back up. Nothing to intricate. As long as AST doesn't go bust.

I remember Circle Oil going bust when they got in to considerable and weren't getting paid on time for their Egyptian oil. It's not a pretty sight.

Gerry, My snipe at you was pointing out your attention to detail. Often a good and worthy thing but, in this instance, rather a side issue when the company is in such a dire situation. Unnecessarily as it happens as it all it would take is for Jure Leben to follow the agreement in place with ARSO, issue the permits and then ensure the environment was looked after by ensuring Geonergo (the engineers) did a good job in stimulating the wells with good regard to the environment. Then INA could take the stable gas flow to Molve and, hey presto, everyones a winner with the region getting local gas and AST shareholders also doing well.