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MK. The issue re Action Group is what action we could/should take that would improve our position. In the short term in all honesty I think very little, the parties involved - Shorecan & Essar need to cut a deal & we as shareholders need them to cut a deal. Everything else is secondary to that & calling an EGM (about what?) would simply waste precious resources .
However medium/long term we need to dramatically change the way shareholders are (mis) treated. The company has effectively been run like a private company & the dual listing/Canadian incorporation has disenfranchised London shareholders (representing some what 90% of shares). We definitely should seek to change that & use our votes to effect meaningful change, but that is not for now but realistically for the next AGM.
Jiving,
Your theory makes sense.
Is it time to kick off the shareholder action group again?
Well I think we have pretty much worked out where we stand and why.
Baserite. Thats also my hunch that the original offtake offer back in Spring 2018 was insultingly low & played a part in provoking this response. The Ruia's have bounced back far & fast almost from that moment. The Karim's seem to be focussed primarily on Nigerian issues.
Sub. Essar's position relies on the Shareholder Agreement - the basics are in the Prospectus. Essentially certain key matters such as formal proposals to the authorities require unanimity, this was designed to 'protect' minority interests once they handed over 80%, but could clearly be used as a veto & bargaining tool.
CND. I have often wondered what this bunch of highly qualified people do for the 75% of the year when they are not working on COPL matters. Stare at the wall, computer games, whatever it is it has never led to 1 cent of income for COPL. I don't know if many of you guys have worked in offices where mainstay revenue has fallen off, the ones I worked in we were actively ordered to pursue whatever got revenue into the unit, whatever your job title/description didn't matter 'get the money in'.
Then offer them an equal percentage.If the production field is as big as is believed and the oil price remains at a reasonable level then everyone’s a winner.Wheras at the mo.However I did hear that their backs were up as Shoreline /Sorecan attempted to snaffle their 20 percent with little or no recompense.Enter the Karim factor
Thumbs up NoEasy- so its a simple case of high egos.
Ok cool if that is the case I kinda understand from Essar point of view ( anyone would do the same)
My thoughts they want the deal done, but want to recuperate $67m they spend thus far... So lets find a happy medium and get it done for all parties sake.
lucky for us COPL is a publicly traded company and anyone can go and see what horrible financial shape they are in and use that as a bargaining chip eh guys?
They didn't have any power Sub. Financially they were in a dire financial condition. Now the worm has turned and they have billions in turnover. You can see why it might rankle them that we are a couple of million company and have 40% of the project they put $67m into and they are sat with only 20%.
Good posts Jiving & No Easy- like always we have to join the dots ourselves.
Quick question Essar only owns 20% then why do they have so much power? And what is their true intentions, surely they’ve burned bridges with NNPC? Do they want the license to themselves?
To put it in simpler terms;
Essar have stuck a commercial dispute front and centre thereby blocking any finance from being signed off.
Yes Jiving we believe it is Essar and their veto but as always we have had no official confirmation as to whether that is the case or not.
If it is Essar then they appear to be playing a pretty simple strategy. They immediately issued an Event of Default notice against Shorecan when they stated they were on the very cusp of signing finance through a Service Provider 15 months ago. That would have got a drill down and, if successful as expected, then income coming in. Once income was coming in then any leverage (weak financial hand of COPL) they had in the dispute would rapidly disipate.
Essar didn't follow through with their threat when the deadline arrived 60 days later but tellingly they didn't take the dispute off the table either. The Essar Nigeria Shareholders Agreement contains a dispute resolution process which ShoreCan has sought unsuccessfully to invoke. Why wouldn't Essar open the dispute resolution process?
It appears clear Essar don't/didn't want a dispute resolution. They waited.
Each subsequent MD&A states, 'ShoreCan will vigorously contest any action by Essar Mauritius to terminate the Essar Nigeria Shareholders Agreement in the English courts'.
How will COPL do their end of that with no money though? It is one thing finding finance for exploration and development quite another to find finance for legal action when you are a company that has no income.
Your thoughts pretty much match my own NoEasy. OPL226 is clearly an extremely attractive oil play that seems to be able to attract SP/finance, but the deals never progress, presumably because they meet the immovable legal/contractual veto wielded by Essar. If there was an easy solution or bypass presumably it would have been found & implemented during the last 18 months.
Still here Rift and in that other one.
The problem as I see it is that every time we try to secure funding for the project such as that provided by a Service Provider and now the Performance Bond (PB) we don't get there. Art, if he knows anything, knows that time is not on our side and hasn't been for the last two plus years hence the declining SP. If he could have done anything to get this moving and a drill down it was in his interest to do so. That he hasn't managed tells us all it is out of his hands. We will soon be down to 10 months left of a two year PSC extension that of itself is not really in play because it is conditional on the PB being handed over.
I cannot get my head past the extremely weak state financially that we find ourselves in yet holding 40% of a potential behemoth. Now which potential business parasites wouldn't be salivating at our predicament.
You still here NoEasy - Sterlign Energy much easier hold with all that cash! Boring and waiting in drawer until a transaction but well covered by cash.
This is a car crash but nobody wants to miss the big moment.
The Performance Bond unlocks drilling? Are we waiting on a performance bond?