Touché Art. You are definitely correct but the smaller companies that you are talking about are worth between 50 - 100 million dollars. The big boys have much more overhead and its just not profitable for the shallow wells. When you get funding for wells that are producing no more than 25 barrels a day, and in Treaty's case they aren't then there is no piece of the pie for Treaty. If I'm giving money to a company with a track record such as Treaty then I am first to get paid back. My point about funding was you definitely need a lot of funding for wells because without the funding you will be unsuccessful. Treaty tries to nickel and dime the wells and they are never successful at it.

Lets say treaty hits the mother load in these worthless leases.
50 barrels a day for 2 months. (Sounds like chump change but please find a better well that Treaty owns.)

Oil may be at 100 a barrel but that isn't what you are selling it for so lets say they get 75 a barrel. Before any expenses Treaty made a whooping 225,000.
They have to Truck the Oil to plant. $1000 per truck = 60,000
They have to pay the drilling overhead. Very cheap side 100,000
They have to pay the production overhead very cheap side 50,000
They have to pay the taxes on the $15,000 remaining.
Where is the money to pay back your investors?

Not arguing with you Art because nothing you said was incorrect. I'm just saying that nobody would give funding to a company that has never ever produced anything. It would be smarter to just buy the lease from Treaty and get the morons out of the middle of it.