July 9, 2008 (3:05p) - Status Report

GW has announced recommendations supporting the merger transaction with BAS from two proxy firms -- Proxy Governance and Egan-Jones -- within the last two days.

Although GW claims these recommendation represent a "strong validation" that the proposed merger with BAS is in the best interest of shareholders, this is neither a validation, nor a convincing argument in the opinion of this publication. The revelations of these recommendations are considered a fairly weak attempt to salvage the chances of obtaining GW shareholder approval next Tuesday (7/15), and by no means change the perception that GW will ultimately adjourn the shareholder meeting in anticipation of rejection.

Once again, the only conceivable means by which the companies can assure shareholder consent for a GW-BAS merger is through an increase to the current terms of the merger agreement closer to the value of the Precision Drilling offer.

July 7, 2008 (9:15a) - RiskMetrics Recommends Against BAS Transaction

RiskMetrics (a.k.a. Institutional Shareholder Services) has publicly announced its recommendation that GW shareholders reject the BAS transaction at the July 15 GW shareholder meeting.

In general, RiskMetrics/ISS' recommendation are of little significance as the outcome in a majority of its situations of involvement are foregone conclusions. However, in this case the shareholder vote must be considered tenuous given the extremely attractive Precision Drilling offer and continued rejection of the GW Board. In other words, this sort of third-party recommendation could very easily be the catalyst, or at least one catalyst, in motivating GW to take action withe respect to the current BAS deal terms.

As of this entry, there is no substantial indication that GW shareholders will vote against the BAS transaction on July 15. This is very likely to change in the coming days as the Precision Drilling offer is clearly superior than the current BAS offer. Therefore, it must be presumed that GW is discussing improved terms from BAS at this time and will adjourn the special shareholder meeting if BAS refuses to increase its offer to at least approach that of the Precision Drilling offer.