Companies: WNL   

Chomping their way through a pub snack opposite London’s Royal Courts of Justice the other day, spin bowler-turned-entrepreneur Phil Edmonds and Andrew Groves, his indispensable operations chief at Sudan oil play White Nile, were taking quiet satisfaction at White Nile’s success in raising £7 million to fund evaluation and exploration of the company’s Block Ba concession in South Sudan’s Muglad Basin. Fashionably tieless, Edmonds insisted the company had overcome obstacles put in its way by bear-raider Simon Cawkwell and other sceptics who have doubted the plausibility of the project.

White Nile has its concession from the government of South Sudan, former leaders of a secessionist rebellion but now recognised as a devolved administration even by the formerly hostile central government in Khartoum. French oil giant Total has threatened to upset White Nile’s apple cart, claiming it has the rights to Block Ba under an earlier deal with Khartoum.

Invoking the United Nations and other authorities, Edmonds says, if Total is serious, it should buy into White Nile. ‘That would be the Anglo-Saxon solution.’ 

White Nile	AIM	£67.63m	20.00p	-0.50p
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Other company articles:
White Nile bullish despite loss			20/12/2006
ITM breaks new ground			21/04/2006
White Nile loses £0.4m			22/12/2005
Robert Tyerman’s exploration insights			04/07/2005
Edmonds awaits Gallic googly			01/07/2005