诱人的收益和遍布全国的看似源源不断的资产流动意味着石油和天然气矿产是一个成熟的市场。各种规模的聚合器都在悄悄地将一些凝聚力应用到分散的国内矿产市场中。Enverus 的矿产产品总监 Phil Dunning 在接受《石油和天然气投资者》的独家采访时对此进行了详尽的分析。    

《石油和天然气投资者》主编 Deon Daugherty：让我们从您对矿产市场动态的高级评估开始吧。Phil
Dunning：矿产市场很有趣。它一直存在，但大多数矿产市场都是私有的。

与上游石油和天然气或运营商不同，这些公司通过企业对企业交易相互销售产品，而矿产行业历来更多的是企业对消费者的交易。这几乎就像卖房子一样。成千上万的交易已经完成。它们从很小的规模开始，然后被整合起来，然后卖给上游越来越大的公司。直到其中几家公司上市，才有消息开始向公众透露，这是一种拥有大量自由现金流的资产类别，而且从收益角度来看，它实际上非常有吸引力。

DD：小型聚合商是谁？他们是如何成长起来的？
PD：所有权随着时间的推移而分散。假设祖父母在西德克萨斯州拥有一个牧场，他们出售了地表，但保留了矿产并搬到了佛罗里达州。如果他们去世时有五个孩子，那么这些资产就会被五人分割。然后，如果每个孩子都有五个孩子，那么它又会再分成五份。因此，两代人之内 100% 的所有权会下降到每人 5% 的所有权。

从所有权的角度来看，矿产领域的问题是，随着世代的更替，所有权比例越来越小。而当你是海上买家时，矿产的收集者主要是土地所有者或私人家族理财室，以及石油和天然气领域的人，比如工程师，他们知道如何承销收购。

与过去相比，如今他们面临的困难在于，随着每一代人都逐渐成熟，资产也不断传承，你必须整合越来越多的交易才能获得与上一代人相同的现金流。获得足够的特许权使用费以吸引其他人购买变得更加复杂。就试图整合这些小型矿产资源的人来说，现在这个领域已经非常饱和。

因此，你开始看到一些有趣的竞争，以寻找想要出售的业主。从社交媒体到通过最常见的方式购买谷歌广告，也就是发送个人邮件，应有尽有。如今仍然存在的家庭、牧场和团体每年赚取数千万美元作为家庭的主要收入，这种情况已经不那么常见了，因为随着时间的推移，这种现象已经变得不那么常见了。

DD：这些历史上私有的资产一旦上市，会发生什么？
PD：当一家公司上市时，它必须保持一定的增长率或分红率。如果你是一家成长型公司，你需要保持收入和利润率的增长。如果你是一家价值型公司，你需要保持股息。

矿产领域的问题是，作为一家矿产公司，你无法掌控钻井。你无法掌控钻井地点和时间，除非你是Viper这样的分支公司，它是Diamondback的下属公司。但在该领域的其他领域，即现有的 90% 以上的其他上市矿产公司，他们无法控制活动。

他们必须非常谨慎地选择收购对象，以确保一是能够产生现金流，二是短期内有上涨空间。如果出于某种原因，他们购买了大量短期内没有任何活动的土地，那么他们基本上就是购买了稀释性的东西。

DD：因此，规模至关重要，但在活跃的矿产领域尤其难以实现。PD
：随着时间的推移，规模变得越来越难，因为随着这些公司收购其他公共或私人矿产公司，规模上只有有限的公司。在矿产领域，有数千家小型聚合公司，每年的现金流约为 1000 万美元。然后是私募股权支持或私人投资者聚合公司的中间群体。然后基本上就变成了上市公司。如果你没有足够的中间公司供上市公司收购，那么保持增长就真的很难了。

关键问题是：增长是否有可能在某个时候停滞？因为所有这些上市公司基本上都在追求同样大的收购类交易，而这样的交易数量有限。而且，在某个时间点是否存在上限，或者我们是否能够继续看到交易流的增值？

DD：停滞是否意味着兴趣已经达到顶峰？
PD：我认为它肯定没有达到顶峰。每当我们认为并购趋势已经达到顶峰时，似乎总是让所有人震惊。我认为它正处于过渡期或开始过渡期，许多大型交易——许多合并和剥离都已发生。就大型聚合公司而言，参与其中的参与者并不多。但我认为接下来需要发生的事情是，有人需要努力让小型聚合器开始出售食物链。这只是一场不同的游戏。它与追逐私募股权支持的资金不同。他们知道他们需要退出，他们对某些退出感到满意。当你与家族办公室或家族牧场打交道时，情况就不同了。

DD：所以当家庭停止出售时，就会出现停滞？
PD：我认为是的。有句老话叫“永远不要卖掉你的矿产”，而且要解决这个问题真的很复杂。我认为，随着年轻一代的到来，尽管这些资产易手，但这也是一些资产剥离的机会。我认为更有趣的是，如果我们开始看到越来越多的运营商开始出售特许权使用费和矿产，并且再次出售非经营性工作权益，那么随着这些合并的发生，这可能会以多种方式发生。

因此，如果运营商拥有矿产，他们可以出售这些矿产。如果运营商拥有特许权使用费，他们可以出售这些特许权使用费。不过，运营商也可以出售自己资产的超额特许权使用费权益。不同的公司已经多次这样做了。例如：我是一名运营商，我自己不拥有任何矿产，但我经营着 1,000 口油井，我基本上可以将超额特许权使用费权益从我的所有权中出售给特许权使用费集团，这将为我筹集资金。

随着时间的推移，出现了一种奇怪的市场，利率和其他因素也随之变化。对于一些公司来说，这可能很有吸引力，他们基本上是出售自己财产的所有权作为替代权，以便筹集资金。因此，特许权使用费、矿产、替代权是私募股权和投资银行业务存在的任何领域。我认为，正如我们许多人从该行业工作或甚至只是报道该行业所知道的那样，他们非常擅长创造新的金融产品和新方法，以便在市场似乎关闭时让资金变形，从而开辟新的空间。因此，即使在较小的市场端出现一些停滞，他们也会找到一种新方法，要么创造这种合成替代权，要么能够在这个领域找到其他有吸引力的东西。

DD：鉴于市场如此分散，这是否会推高估值？
PD：是也不是。从中型和大型增值交易减少的角度来看，这推高了估值。Kimbell Royalty Partners等公司会告诉你，他们实际上只关注 100 万美元或以上的交易。有很多人追逐这些交易，很多私募股权资金。

还有一些上市公司正在寻求规模较小的交易。仍有很多人在寻求这些交易，但资金并没有那么疯狂，这意味着估值还没有达到不合理的水平。

我认为，我们看到的人们花费更多的地方的临界点实际上是在中间交易空间中，越来越多的人正在争夺[更少的可用]交易。

如果整合商无法整合足够多的交易，无法吸引价值链上下游公司，那么待售资产和可供收购的大型公司就会出现断层。这样的公司越来越少，这意味着每当有人想出售时，竞争就会更加激烈。

DD：目前推动这一活动的因素是什么？
PD：目前，我认为主要原因是价格有点低迷——天然气价格肯定仍然低迷，石油价格仍处于良好区间，但已不像几年前那么高了。

我认为许多人开始意识到，大宗商品即将出现紧缩局面。2025 年，我们所有的液化天然气终端都将投入使用，这应该至少能缓解二叠纪盆地、德克萨斯州南部和路易斯安那州的瓶颈问题。

为了满足这些购买要求，你必须钻探更多油井。因此，很容易理解，美国某些地区的活动将不得不增加，以满足对天然气、天然气和相关液体的具体要求和义务。然后你也看到现实，人们正在努力在任何可能的地方寻找收益。

如果你想投资能源领域，现在投资公共运营商变得越来越难。现在有七家大型运营商，而且越来越少。这与矿业公司略有不同，矿业公司几乎都是收益型的。它们的收益比大多数上市公司高得多。

但同样，随着越来越多的人对投资这些公司感兴趣，维持规模和维持这些收益对他们来说就成了问题。我认为人们进来时会意识到，“我们知道，在未来 24 到 36 个月内，大宗商品价格会大幅上涨。”他们试图今天入市，因为这样可以低价买入并维持未来的收益。

由于人们到处都在寻求收益，尤其是预期利率会在某个时间点下降，与房地产投资信托基金、商业房地产或任何类型的房地产平台相比，特许权使用费非常有吸引力。MLP 也不再那么有吸引力了。因此，它可以说是高收益投资的最后场所之一，至少在公共领域是如此。

DD：矿产行业之所以能获得如此巨大的收益，是因为他们无需支付钻探费用以及与之相关的一切费用。这是公平的评价吗？或者为什么矿产行业的收益高于该领域的其他行业？
PD：这是除一般管理费用和收购费用之外的纯自由现金流，因为正如你刚才所说，一旦你投资了这笔钱，你就不需要再欠任何东西了。这是一笔额外的特许权使用费。

这也意味着你必须在前期投入更多资金。你所有的成本都花在收购本身上，然后希望它能成为持续回报的肥差。因此，与非经营性工作权益或具体工作权益相比，这显然会提高价值。人们必须记住，关于矿物，你无法控制任何东西。虽然你在后端没有任何成本，但能够确定下一步钻探资产地点的团队才是最具吸引力的团队。

如果你购买了一大堆土地，这些土地可​​能目前在产油，但未来新油井的开采没有增长空间，那么你将面临特许权使用费成为递减资产的问题。这是一个递减的资产基础。如果你的所有资产都在递减，而你又没有新的产油上线，那么你将无法维持这些自由现金流收益。这背后有一点艺术和科学。

我认为人们更多地投资于那些他们认为最能决定未来哪些房产将最活跃的团队，而不仅仅是那些在这个领域购买一切房产的团队。

DD：为什么生产商公司通常不拥有矿产权以及其运营的地表权益？
PD：如果回顾 70 年代和 80 年代，埃克森美孚最初是矿产和运营的所有者。这就是为什么他们在怀俄明州和科罗拉多州拥有如此多的煤层气矿产。这被视为具有吸引力，这意味着维持支付给处理个人租赁和义务的个人特许权所有者的成本很高。如果您拥有运营下大部分或 100% 的矿产，那么您唯一要负责的人就是您自己。从运营的角度来看，这实际上非常有吸引力。

问题在于，各家公司都放弃了这一模式，因为任何公司都有成本中心，如果你将数十亿美元投入到运营费用中，你就不会再将那么多钱投入到矿产中。你必须选择将钱投资到哪里。

很多公司没有足够的资本同时投资这两方面。我们看到，虽然有些公司在有机会时会进行收购，但它们并没有积极地进行收购，但如果有意义，它们就会这么做。我们看到越来越多的公司开始创建子公司或建立合作伙伴关系。

历史上的例子是 Viper 和 Diamondback。这是一个下拉式模型。因此，如果 Diamondback 拥有矿产，他们基本上会将其出售给其子公司 Viper，然后由 Viper 为他们管理。现在，这样做的好处是 Viper 会知道钻井计划，因为 Diamondback 负责运营油井。因此，他们有更简单的方法来确定他们想在哪里投资，并能够购买特许权使用费。他们对另一家下拉式公司 [ Rattler Midstream ] 也做了同样的事情。

DD：与传统的勘探和生产资产相比，矿产资产的估值如何？
PD：答案有点两面性。从经济衰退的角度来看，这些资产的估值相同。如果你忽略所有成本投入和所有这些东西，你应该得出相同的基本井型。

区别在于财务方面。当你评估一项运营交易或一项权益交易时，你必须包括你的资本支出。这需要前期成本，而矿产是随着时间推移而赚钱的。你不需要随着时间的推移而产生运营费用。所以，你所有的钱都是预先投资的。这意味着它每英亩的价值将高于运营商的价值。

评估这些资产的方式非常相似。您需要了解客户资料，了解将要钻探的井数，然后计算出每英亩的价值百分比，但实际的财务现金流是不同的。

DD：展望未来，您是否预计会有更多大型矿业公司上市？
PD：说实话，可能不会。我们在这个领域遇到的一个问题是，尽管自由现金流很有吸引力，收益率很有吸引力，但从对冲的角度来看，资产类别很有吸引力，如果您不想与运营商一起购买，上市公司不会像其他资产类别中的其他类型的上市公司那样受到对待，对吗？我们与房地产中的房地产投资信托基金 (REIT) 的待遇不同。我们与另一种周期性市场不同。  

你有这种类型的股息参与者，除非“机构投资者真正愿意投入一些资金，使上市公司具有吸引力，否则公司很难上市，因为上市的唯一原因是为了能够以不同的方式筹集资金。

如果你是一家私营公司，你可以通过举债或筹集私募股权基金来筹集资金。如果你是一家上市公司，你可以通过举债发行股票来筹集资金。这只是筹集资金的其他方式。如果上市公司很难筹集资金，即使它们是优秀的公司，你为什么要上市呢？

矿业领域也存在同样的情况。除非投资者真的愿意介入，让上市变得有吸引力，否则上市就毫无意义。

Attractive yield and a seemingly unending flow of assets scattered across the nation mean oil and gas minerals are a market ripe for the picking. And aggregators of all sizes are quietly applying some cohesion to the largely fragmented domestic minerals market. Enverus’ Phil Dunning, director of product for minerals, breaks it down in this exclusive interview with Oil and Gas Investor.    

Deon Daugherty, Oil and Gas Investor editor-in-chief: Let’s begin with your high-level assessment of minerals market dynamics.
Phil Dunning: The minerals market is interesting. It’s always existed, but most of the minerals world is private.

Unlike upstream oil and gas or operators where you have companies selling to each other [through] a business-to-business transaction, the mineral space historically has been more business-to-consumer. It’s almost like selling homes. Thousands of transactions are done. They [start] very small, then they’re aggregated, and then they’re sold upstream to bigger and bigger fish. It really wasn’t until a couple of these companies went public that news started coming out into the public that this is an asset class with a lot of free cash flow, and it’s actually very attractive from a yield perspective.

DD: Who are the small aggregators, and how do they grow?
PD: Ownership is fragmented over time. Let’s say grandparents owned a ranch in West Texas and they sold the surface, but they kept the minerals and they moved to Florida. If they had five kids when they passed away, then those assets are split five ways. And then if each one of those kids has five kids, then it’s split another five ways. So that 100% ownership, within two generations, is down to 5% ownership per person.

The problem in the mineral space from the ownership standpoint is that as more generations pass, the ownership percentage gets smaller and smaller. And when you’re a buyer, aggregating minerals is mainly either going to be landmen or private family offices, and people in the oil and gas space, like engineers, who know how to underwrite the acquisitions.

What gets hard for them today compared to in the past is that as each generation is coming of age and the assets are getting passed down, you’re having to aggregate more and more deals to make the same cash flow that you [could access] a generation prior. It’s becoming much more complex to acquire enough royalties that actually make a difference for someone else to buy. It’s a very saturated space now in terms of people trying to aggregate these small minerals.

So, you’re starting to see some interesting competition to find owners who want to sell. That’s everything from social media and buying Google ads through the most common one, which is just sending individual mailers. There’s not as many families and ranches and groups that still exist today that are making tens of millions of dollars a year as the family’s primary income. That’s just not as common anymore because of the fragmentation over time.

DD: What happens once these historically private assets go public?
PD: When a company is public, it has to maintain some rate of growth or payout. If you’re a growth company, you need to be maintaining growth of revenue and profit margin. If you’re a value company, you need to be maintaining dividends.

The problem in the mineral space is that as a mineral company, you don’t direct the bit. You don’t direct where wells are drilled and when they are drilled, unless you’re an offshoot class like Viper, which is a dropdown from Diamondback. But in the rest of the space, meaning 90% plus of the other public mineral companies that exist, they don’t control activity.

They have to be very careful on what they acquire to make sure that one, it is cash-flowing and two, it has a near-term upside. If for some reason they buy a bunch of acreage that just doesn’t have any near-term activity, they basically just bought something that’s dilutive.

DD: So, scale is critical, but it’s particularly difficult to achieve in an active minerals space.
PD: It’s becoming harder and harder over time because as these companies acquire other public or other private mineral companies, there’s only so many others at scale. In the mineral space, there are thousands of small aggregators that own [about] $10 million a year of cash flow. Then there’s a middle group of private equity-backed or private investor aggregate companies. And then it basically jumps up to public companies. If you don’t have enough of those middle companies for the public ones to buy, it’s really hard to maintain growth.

That’s the key question: is there a potential for stalling of growth at some point? Because all these public companies are basically going after the same very large acquisition-type deals, and there’s only so many of those to be had. And, is there a ceiling at any point in time or are we going to be able to continue to see the accretive deal flow?

DD: Would a stall mean that interest has peaked?
PD: I don’t think it’s peaked, that’s for sure. Every single time we think any M&A trend has peaked, it always seems to shock everyone. I think it’s in a transition period or starting a transition period to where a lot of the larger deals that existed—a lot of those consolidations and divestitures have occurred. There’s not that many players in it in terms of larger aggregation companies. I think the thing that needs to occur next, though, is someone needs to crack the nut on starting to get smaller aggregators to start selling up the food chain. And it’s just a different game. It’s just different than going after private equity-backed money. They know they need an exit, they’re comfortable at certain exits. It’s just different when you’re dealing with family offices and or family ranches.

DD: So the stall happens when families stop selling?
PD: I think it can be. There’s this old mantra—never sell your minerals—and it’s been really complex to work around. I think as you get to younger generations, though these assets change hands, it is an opportunity for some divestiture. I think the more interesting one is if we start to see an increase in operators starting to sell royalties and minerals, and again, non-operated working interest off as these consolidations occur, that can happen in a number of ways.

So if an operator owns minerals, they can sell them. If an operator owns royalties, they can sell them. Operators, though, can also sell overriding royalty interests on their own properties. And this has been done a number of times from different companies. The example would be: I’m an operator, I don’t own any minerals myself, but I operate 1,000 wells and I can basically sell off an overriding royalty interest to a royalty group from my ownership, and that will raise capital for me.

There is kind of this weird market that has existed over time, again, where interest rates are and things. It can be attractive to some companies that basically selling off ownership rights as overrides in their own properties to be able to raise money. So royalties, minerals, overrides anywhere where private equity and investment banking lives. I think as many of us know from working in that industry or even just covering it, they are very good at creating new financial products and new ways in order to make money shapeshift when markets seem closed to create a new space. And so, even if there is a little bit of a stalling on the smaller end of the market, again, they’re going to find a new way in order to either create these kinds of synthetic overrides or to be able to find something else attractive in this space.

DD: Does this drive up valuations given that the market is so fragmented?
PD: Yes and no. It drives it up from the standpoint that there are less middle and larger accretive deals. A [company such as] Kimbell Royalty Partners will tell you that they really only focus on deals of $1 million or more. There’s a lot of people going after those deals, a lot of private equity money.

And there’s also public companies that are going after deals on the smaller side. There is still a lot of people going after them, but the money isn’t as crazy, meaning valuations haven’t jumped to unreasonable levels.

I think where we’re seeing the breaking point of where people are spending more is really in that middle deal space where more and more people are fighting for [fewer available] deals.

If aggregators aren’t able to aggregate enough deals to make themselves attractive to the next company up the value chain, then you have a break in [assets] that are for sale and the larger the company that can be found to buy. There’s fewer and fewer of those, which means that there’s a lot more competition whenever somebody wants to sell.

DD: What is driving this activity at this moment?
PD: Right now, I think the main reason is that prices are a little bit depressed—meaning gas is definitely still depressed, oil is still in a good range, but it wasn’t what it was a couple years ago.

And I think a lot of people are starting to see that on the horizon, there is a crunch in terms of commodities. We have all the LNG terminals coming online in ’25, which should reduce the bottleneck, at least, in the Permian, in south Texas and Louisiana.

In order to fill those purchase requirements, you’re going to have to drill more wells. So there is an easy understanding that activity is going to have to increase in certain parts of the U.S. to meet the demands and the obligations that are set forth specifically for gas, natural gas and associated liquids. And then you also just have the reality that people are trying to find yield anywhere that they can.

If you want to be invested in the energy space, it’s harder and harder now to actually invest in public operators. There are seven big ones now, and getting less and less. That’s a little different than a mineral company, which is pretty much all yield. They yield a lot more than most public companies do.

But again, as more people are interested in investing in these companies, it becomes a problem for them just to maintain scaling and maintain those payouts. I think people are kind of coming in seeing that, “Hey, we know in the next 24, 36 months, things are going to get substantially better in commodity prices.” They are trying to get in today because you buy low and maintain those yields going forward.

As people are searching for yield all over the place, especially with an anticipation of interest rates dropping at some point in time, royalties are pretty attractive compared to a REIT, commercial real estate or any type of real estate type of platform. MLPs aren’t super attractive anymore either. So, it’s kind of one of the last places for high yield type of investments, at least in the public space.

DD: And minerals have this tremendous yield because they don’t have the expense of paying for the drilling and everything that goes along with it. Is that a fair assessment or why do minerals have a better yield than other sectors in the space?
PD: It is pure free-cash flow outside of general administrative costs and outside of acquisitions, because to the point you just made, once you’ve invested the money, you don’t owe anything else on top of it. It’s a royalty off the top.

Now that also means you have to put a little bit more money in upfront. All of your costs are in the acquisition itself, and then the hope is that it’s the gravy train as it continues to pay out. So that obviously will move forward value compared to things like non-op working interests or working interests specifically. The thing that people have to remember about minerals is that again, you don’t control anything. While you don’t have any costs on the back end, the teams that are able to determine where assets will be drilled next are the ones that are going to be most attractive.

If you’re buying a bunch of acreage that maybe is producing today but doesn’t have upside in terms of the new wells being drilled in the future, you’re going to run into the problem of royalties being a declining asset. It’s a declining asset base. If all your properties are declining and you don’t have new production coming online, you’re not going to be able to maintain those free cash-flow yields. There’s a little bit of an art and a science behind it.

I think people are more investing in the teams that they believe do the best at determining what property will have the most activity in the future more than just those that are buying whatever they can in this space.

DD: Why don’t producer companies generally own the mineral rights as well as the surface interests for their operations?
PD: If you go back to the ’70s and ’80s, Exxon Mobil originally was kind of this purveyor of owning the minerals and the operations. That’s why they own so many minerals in coalbed methane out in Wyoming and Colorado. And it was seen as attractive, meaning there’s a large cost to maintaining having to pay out individual royalty owners dealing with individual leases and obligations. If you own the majority or 100% of the minerals underneath your operations, the only person you answer to is to yourself. It’s actually very attractive from an operational standpoint.

The issue was that companies moved away from it because any company has cost centers, and if you’re putting billions of dollars into operational expenses, you’re not going to put as much money into minerals. You have to choose where you’re going to invest your money.

A lot of companies just don’t have the capital to be able to be investing in both at the same time. What you’ve seen is that while some companies acquire when the opportunity exists, they’re not actively out there acquiring, but they’ll do it if it makes sense. We have seen a lot more companies starting to either create subsidiaries or do partnerships.

The example historically has been Viper and Diamondback. It’s a dropdown model. And so if Diamondback has minerals, they’ll basically sell it to their subsidiary Viper, who will then manage it for them. Now, the benefit of that is that Viper will know what the drill schedule is because Diamondback is operating the wells. And so they have a lot easier way of determining where they want to invest money and to be able to buy royalties. And they did the same exact thing with their other dropdown in [Rattler Midstream].

DD: How are minerals assets valued compared to traditional E&P acreage assets?
PD: It is a little bit of a two-sided answer. The assets are valued the same from an economic decline standpoint. If you ignore all the cost inputs and all that stuff, you should be coming up with the same basic well profile.

The differentiation is on the financial part. When you’re valuing an operated deal or even a working interest deal, you have to include your capital expenditures. There’s an upfront cost and you make your money over time with minerals. You don’t have that operational expense over time. And so, all your money’s invested upfront. That just means that it’s going to be worth more per acre than it would on the operator side.

The way you evaluate the properties is very similar. You come up with the client profiles, you come up with the number of wells that are going to be drilled, and that gives you a value per-acre percentage, but the actual financial cash flows is where it differs.

DD: Going forward, would you expect more of the larger minerals companies to go public?
PD: Probably not, to be honest. One of the issues that we’ve had in the space is that even though the free cash flow is attractive, the yields are attractive, the asset classes are attractive from a hedge standpoint if you don’t want to be buying with an operator … the public companies are not treated as other types of public companies in different asset classes, right? We’re treated differently than REITs in real estate. We’re treated differently than another cyclical kind of market.  

You have these kind of dividend players, and until … institutional investors are really willing to put some money to work in the space to make being a public company attractive, it’s really hard for companies to go public because the only reason you go public is to have the ability to raise capital in a different manner.

If you’re a private company, you can raise money by getting debt or by raising private equity funds. If you’re public, you can raise money by getting debt issuing shares. It’s just other ways of being able to raise capital. And if it’s really hard for companies that are public to be able to raise capital, even though they’re great companies, why would you become public?

The same exact thing is true in minerals. Unless investors are really willing to step in and to make going public attractive, there’s no reason to go public.