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Interesting editorial from one of the main periodicals in Chad, Ialtchad:
A few weeks after the Arbitration Court of Paris, France, found Savannah's complaint regarding the nationalization of its assets admissible in form, another tile has just fallen on the heads of the authorities of the transition. American justice ordered last Friday the freezing of Cotco funds at City Bank, the Gabonese subsidiary where oil revenues from Doba wells are deposited. This decision is immediate. No more movement of funds until the final outcome of the dispute. According to several sources close to the City, 150 million dollars belonging to Chad are currently frozen.
At the time, the transitional authorities had decided to go in force, under fanfare, by proclaiming publicly that the nationalization of the British company's assets was a matter of national sovereignty. And they everywhere affirmed that it was a good decision flattering the primary patriotic ego of several compatriots. Any contrary opinion reminds them that the debate is not about nationalization but about the method or the savage way of proceeding in defiance of all the elementary rules. And outside of any reflection and proposal from experts. It was a nationalization “Ab goudoura, goudoura” (with forceps).
Today in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, the authorities have adopted two attitudes. That of the carp and the Ostrich. At the top of the state, the transitional president and his Prime Minister are silent as carp on the issue. At the second level of the transition, those who led the nationalization assault, the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency (SGP), the Minister of Energy, the Minister of Finance and the entire team are doing the Ostrich by burying their heads in the oil wells of Doba. In short, it’s radio silence at all levels. Is this the solution? No.
First, we will have to resolve to come out of denial and speak publicly about this issue to enlighten Chadians by explaining the strategy to adopt and the reasons that support it. Because it is simply in the public interest.
Then, the Transitional President must sanction those who encouraged him to take the path of this wild nationalization. At a minimum, the decoration and elevation to the rank of “whatever thing” of the “oil task force” as Professor of Law and Lecturer at the University of Orléans Abdoulaye Boitaingar would say in an excellent paper titled: Savannah Affair : And the law of Iron struck Chad published in our columns, must be canceled.
Also Truck loading oil tanker gantry being built, So if there are issues with export pipeline than potentially oil will be trucked........,
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eugene-muya-702383140_steelstructures-bimtechnology-activity-7108386821004308480-hhlB?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Should give us some security if export pipeline is disrupted. Good sign that they are expediating background work so if there is a need to seek an alternative route than the infrastructure is there to make it possible quickly
Interesting to see plenty of Infrastructure upgrades and pipeline work taking place or started already on the assets at operating companies
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/olga-international-limited_construction-underground-flowline-activity-7097879766669623297-DZ7d?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/swaed-for-petroleum-and-technical-services-co_swaedforpetroleumandtechnicalservicesco-petroleumservices-activity-7096204380575531008-flKx?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/olga-international-limited_welding-weldinglife-fittup-activity-7094604104974409729-vf_7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
SOG - great post and it would be great to see a meaningful adult expansion / additions to what you’ve written over the next few days. We can then let IR know (although I’m pretty certain they are reading anyway), that they should see this board prior to arranging the comms around the interims. Even though the company can and should remain tight-lipped re CC & SS, surely they have a right to give us more detail on our core business.
Thank you Sajy - your update & sharing is v much appreciated!
Agree an update from CEO on strategic deals / progress, would be good, BUT It would be great for the CFO to take us through the interims as would be best practice - other nat resources / commodity names (listed & private) always have the CFO explain the numbers to investors, and, to fold in RR theme from other post, would show team leadership, not just one man show.
It’s going to be a very technical set of interims which a CFO should speak to - eg1 the Nigerian FX piece (I am braced for material negative short term impact, despite the sunny uplands assurances of positive long term); eg2 CC revenues - few months’ upstream and cotco (~40% of $155m treated as receivable?), provisions (?), CC fees; eg3 newly amended pxf terms will show up in numbers(?); eg4 new / renewables fte impact at Head Office on the HO / management costs, etc, etc. At the AGM was poor CFO not present and it was suboptimal not to get a clear and thorough explanation of FX, when everyone on the EM ‘street’ was aware that there were / are big issues with $ in Nigeria, and SAVE had material NGN deposits. To name a few. Not the CEO’s role to explain this stuff.
DYOR Cheers
Had a chat with IR today. No change to the guidance for SS, still expecting to issue AD by end of September for now. I asked if the company could extend the deadline beyond September if they needed to and was told yes they can and it is not an issue.
Asked why no Rns for the recent court case win against Citibank. Told legally advice is to not Rns news re Chad while ICC case ongoing, also do not want to add fuel to fire. Asked any chance of negotiating a settlement with Chad Gov and told highly unlikely.
Asked why no news or updates last few months, told it's been a quiet period. Company will be issuing interims report before end of September and also got the feeling other news also imminent. Asked if AK could do a presentation for the interims, request will be passed to Ak.
Although we have had no news got the impression things a progressing well behind the scenes and we are likely to get a few updates soon.
Very good memory but it’s the No 18 bus to Hanley from where I live - LOL
As an aside - great to see other senior execs on their metal presenting at various conferences etc. I’ve always had a little gripe that we only used to see AK ‘doing it all’. Genuinely impressed that he’s taken the shackles off quite a few people.
I really think we are seeing some serious momentum forming now - we just need to turn in in in to closed deals, BOPD & 2P. Then we will all enjoy the SP taking care of itself.
That will be a number 21 bus to Hanley bus station from your location (if I remember correctly), followed by a National Express coach to Cape Town 🤫
Good to have you back here RR
and thanks for all your very informative posts...
Shall we hire a bus and all nip over?
Mine too! Love love love. Gorgeous. Enjoy. I’m so jealous. Need to go back at some point. Just too busy.
Thank you, J.D.!
That would be appreciated JDC, enjoy Cape Town my favourite city let me know if you need some restaurant recommendations.
CYB - I'll be attending AEW. I'll see if I can glean anything useful beyond what is already public.
10 days to go
I find the below quote interesting from AK
“Therefore, we fully expect to continue to acquire, develop and operate hydrocarbon businesses and re-invest the cash flows we generate into both hydrocarbon and renewable energy projects for the benefit of our host countries.”
Clearly as we speak and considering the article was published yesterday there is a degree of optimism that acquiring hydrocarbon assets is still part of the strategy and nothing has changed on that front.
There must be some degree of confidence that they can successfully land these assets whichever they may toward full completion.
You may have a good point there CYB, so I think it is worth mentioning the dates of the upcoming African Energy Week (AEW) 2023 conference, which is taking place from 16–20 October in Cape Town.
(My apologies if dates have already been posted).
There has been a lot of very informative posts of late and would like to add my Thanks to all for sharing.
I'm probably reading *far* too much into the tea leaves here, but this seems rather a late stage to be announced as a speaker and sponsor for this Cape Town gig. It may suggest that Savannah has recently secured something material and this forum is the place to announce it. That would be rather nice.
Is anyone heading down south for this?
Am up to date on the convo re order of sign offs.
As you know I’ve been told AK’s preferred way would be to come back with everything signed except SH approval. Now as we know the usual way is similar to what we have done before and the way Afrenta announced today. Ie issue Ad Doc / re-list, then SH approval and finally Gov sign-off. Doing it this way stops any Gov embarrassment with this having to give the final nod. The last thing they would want to do is approve only for SH’s to vote it down at a later date.
So why could we do it in a different way with Gov approval announced at AD Doc / re-lis time and SH approval to follow 2/3 weeks later and the Gov be comfortable with this?
Well with 64% of shares held by BOD / II’s we could provide letters of intent that 64% would agree and hence approve.
Additionally SS may want it done before Energy Week to REALLY prove that they are open for business.
WOW TiL - I like that read. And can you imagine how powerful it would be to be talking at conference in October if SS was closed at end of September? The renewable stuff and Nigeria stuff reads extremely well and could not sound better. Really looking forward to 29/9 now to read the H1 report and whatever we get told about the SS deal.
Andrew Knott quote for the article sounds Bullish and upbeat
This PR article from Africa Energy Week as we will present and be sponsoring
https://aecweek.com/advancing-sustainable-og-investments-savannah-energy-joins-aew-2023-as-bronze-sponsor/
Komakino - I fully concur the importance placed on admission document and approval coming in tandem is purely based on information fed by people who have spoken to IR, but the position was never set in stone.
I believe what IR truly meant to say was AK is probably looking for some assurance by the way of certain pre-approved conditional approval which is binding on all parties to release the admission document. In most cases as Zengas previously alluded to final government approvals normally come after shareholder approvals and re-admission and that tends to be the normal course of timeline for all deals.
So in view of the above fact the market will have to factor in the economics of the deal....................
The 25% rise on AET is on a smaller deal, our deal is potentially 55,000 bopd plus 300 - 400 million 2p reserves. So there is no way the market doesn't give a premium even if it's modest to begin with
Who knows we may even get news this week ?