James Kirby

Okay.

And this hedging, could you explain to listeners who don't know about the hedging?

It's, I mean, it's a game really, isn't it?

They're forced to play this game, but they have to bet on the future of the oil price.

And if they get it right, they win.

And if they get it wrong, it can go horribly wrong, can't it?

Yeah, actually, that's interesting.

There's something I must tell listeners.

There's a great story about hedging.

For people who won't be familiar, say with DFO, well, the people behind DFO, David Whelan, David Goldberger, this is the originals behind it.

They sold it in recent times.

They were amazing operators.

And they've been on the rich list on and off over the years.

But a key source of their fortune, Eric, was to do with oil hedging.

And they had a company called Solo Oil way back, like a million years ago, in the oil crisis.

And they had a hedging arrangement with one of the majors there.

It was a long-term hedge.

And they had bought this oil really cheaply, like really cheaply.

And the oil price, it tripled in the 70s, you know, but these two guys had this arrangement and the oil major, it never reneged on the price they got.

So they were able to sell oil much more cheaply than the big oil companies at the time and make a profit of it.