Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Elements of common ownership/leadership. Steve Byle founded/cofounded the various companies involved (Valkor, Crosstrails, HSO, etc).
@Wonga
Seems you are right in that Heavy Sweet Oil (HSO) is a seperate company, I always thought it was a Valkor subsidiary as I could swear I saw it on Valkors website once. Guess I was wrong on that, but Steven Byle is pretty much at the head of HSO, and he certainly has not left Valkor, he is still its CEO. So I guess Valkor and HSO are simply just extremely close and tied together by Steve Byle despite technically being seperate.
There should be a nice incentive for all associates to get this up and running quick as.
The whole reason that we are so important (instrumental) to success in Vernal/Utah is the proximity to refining capacity. It’s basically non existent. The nearest refineries are in Salt Lake City hundreds of miles away. The only route for heavy waxy oil is in heated Train tankers and there’s no train line yet.
We (our technology) cuts out the need for upstream refining of the output product. We turn the heavy waxy oil tar into heavy sweet low carbon oil like a no6 heating oil. Or a marine lsfo.
HSO aren’t physically selling this stuff until our MMU is commissioned and we’re pumping the black gold. Not unless they’re planning on selling it for road tar. 🤩
Brian — the existing HSO approval from the DOGM Board were for exceptions to normal spacing rules and approval for the project at a high level. HSO did NOT receive drilling permits and various underground water permits at the time for the wells — the department (DOGM) itself still needed to issue the permits.
They appear to have issue 1 as of last night.
The data on permits is available freely online.
There you go:
https://tinypic.host/image/image.DRRxPc
Dustof...Hoodoo does not appear to be an issue anymore as per JM's statement.
@Crownos, I didn't realise HSO were wholly owned by Valkor. I thought it was an independent company set up by Steve Byle after he left Valkor? The RNS calls them a "project partner" rather than a subsidiary??
With thanks to Dusty for some research on the Forum, it appears Valkor have a license to drill ONLY ONE WELL!
Shouldn't take long then
@Wonga
Valkor are indeed an engineering provider, but Valkor fully owns their subsidiary Heavy Sweet Oil (HSO) which is their upcoming oil company. As far as I am aware Valkor do own land leases but they did sell a large portion to Ecoteq energy for a large stake in the company. Not sure exactly whats happening surrounding Ecoteq as they have now changed from a public listed company to a private one. Valkor and Tomco are also pretty friendly and Tomco is allowing Valkor/HSO to drill in part on their land for their drilling project and will be compensating Tomco. Overall we say Valkor but really we are dealing with their wholly owned subsidiary Heavy sweet oil and they do have land leases but im not sure how much land or where.
My understanding of Valkor's role in numerous Utah projects, is to supply the engineering expertise, rather than producing and selling bitumen/oil/MSAR/BioMSAR or any other commodity???
Do they have land leases of their own to exploit?
** and get the untization approved **
My belief based on that, is Valkor can drill up to 4 wells if they choose to do so, but only need one drilled in order to provide the evidence to blow away the challenge from Hoodoo, and get the initiation approved.
Dusty,
Valkor had 4 wells approved in December 2022. They may not all be HSO wells, hence not appearing under HSO in the open source data. But all four are approved as they are the pilot project that was applied for in 2022.
"The decision does not prevent Valkor from drilling the 4 pilot wells already granted by the Board in December 2022. Pilot well drilling will be necessary to support a further application for unitisation in due course."
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/QED/valkor-update-vzartxcvqttdbjm.html
@Crownos - what a wonderful post. Very informative.
From open source data, I can see that HSO only currently have 1 well approved (finally) as of last night.
[Usual caveat that this data might be in the process of being updated].
Evidently DOGM are demanding to see the results from a single well before they approve the rest of the pilot project wells. That seems a good compromise to get it going, considering the multi-year delays they have inflicted on Valkor/HSO/etc.
Once HSO (hopefully) succeed with the pilot project, they will have to go back for approval for the full project. Hopefully they will find a way to resolve things with Hoodoo to avoid them gumming up the works again.
To answer your question SemaphorRed, here is what I believe may happen, ofcourse nothing is guaranteed or accurate, but it would be the obvious trajectory.
Next steps for Utah re: Valkor/Quadrise is waiting for Valkor to drill the pilot wells and gain samples for Quadrise to test. No doubt once testing has been verified by Quadrise as suitable for Msar/BioMsar, then I believe the Valkor funder will issue the rest of the funds needed for Valkor to kickstart its wider project for unitization where Valkor is hoping to drill 100+ oil wells possible alot more.
Once funding has been granted to Valkor on full to kickstart their wider drilling project at the same time Quadrise will recieve $1.5 million, one million on receipt of financing and the other 500k on receipt of Quadrise's MMU to produce Msar/BioMsar.
Once the pilot wells have been drilled and the oil tested I would think the Utah division would be much more quicker and willing to grant Valkors unitization program as they will have the physical evidence needed which was absent before.
Once Valkor obtains permits for their unitization project then the world is their oyster as it would then become a commercial venture with no doubt other local oil companies wanting in on the additional profits from their own oil wells. I believe this could then lead to further licences/contracts being drawn up for both Quadrise and Valkor to benefit from and if Valkor markets their oil and finds a wide array of customers for their oil/Msar &BioMsar, then it may a catalyst which could open up significant trade for oil in Utah.
In the beginning though, atleast for 6 months or more when the MMU is being built I'd expect Valkor to sell their oil as standard Low sulphur, until the MMU is up and running. If there is a success with the selling of Msar/BioMsar within Valkors market scope, then I would also be in the thought that Valkor may request more MMU's to create more Msar/BioMsar meaning more revenue for Quadrise and if other companies follow suit with Valkor we could be selling many MMU's for use with possibly Valkor being the engineering contractor if Quadrise trains their staff.
The next stage for Valkor is to then move onto their Oilsands via Tomco or possibly on their own, not sure how they will go about it, but Oilsands would be the next stage to oil recovery which given there is more surface sand oil than oil from drilling in Utah it could create an oil boom in the US if oilsands is unlocked on a profitable basis which has been a failed dream in Utah for decades.
Overall, if the oil in Utah is unlocked it could be extremely big money for those who unlock it.
QED have confirmed there has been some preparatory engineering work completed, NFD. The MMU is likely in Denmark having been serviced/refurbished by the OEM. Until the parties agree to sign contracts, there’s little else can be done. The company likely have a plan in place to get things moving as and when agreements are confirmed.
Keep on running SP
Okay. I was just re-reading the Marine Project Update RNS from early Feb and just wondered if anything had changed in regards to that site preparation work. I did trawl throught some of the posts around the time of the last IMC presentation for some clarity. Guess I was hoping for some leap of faith on QFI's part to have everything in place a ready to go.
Thanks.
And another question: what are the next steps re Utah?
Deman...Once Mac 2 have the Biomsar permits which we were told they were expected soon site preperation will take place. See the below :
During 2022 MSC requested that bioMSAR™ was incorporated into the vessel trial programme, and as a result, further tests needed to be carried out together with Wartsila, the engine manufacturer. MSC also purchased and renamed the Seago Istanbul, that is equipped with an MSAR® fuel system and completed vessel upgrades to enhance their fleet. There have clearly been some delays to the originally anticipated timeline, but we have now secured a biofuel supply partner (Cargill) and bunkering facility (MAC2), and are now at the stage of finalising binding agreements between the key trial parties including MSC. We now expect site preparation work in Q2 2024 and trial to commence in Q3 2024.
What's the current situation regarding the delivery, installation and commissioning of the MMU for the MAC2 facility in Antwerp? Is that still dependent on getting the toll manufacturing agreement signed with Cargill? Or can it / is it being done preemptively given this news?
Good to see us up in the top 5 on the risers board, btw. :)
Great to see the price finally heading north again, which is long overdue. Hopefully the start of some nice news flow over the next couple of months as we await updates on MSC, Morocco, Panama, Singapore and the new shipping trial.
Steve Byles has stated that he will be ‘Marketing the product’ the output from the QED process, the commercially ready heavy sweet low sulphur/low carbon intensity oil. By the turn of the half year.
That’s great news. He’s a go-getter! He’s going to be marketing the output product looking for customers even whilst we are making ready and delivering/commissioning the MMU kit to the production site at the well head.
I’m sure that Valkor/HSO will be producing and storing raw oil before we are commissioned in readiness for selling the stuff!
Positivity breeds success. Giddy up HSO and Valkor 👍
Literally can't understand why these people don't like d.irectors talk, it's not even a competitor!
I think having Steve Byle involved will make a difference.