Welcome to an Extended London South East Q&A interview with Eytan Uliel, CEO at Challenger Energy (CEG), the AIM and OTC listed oil and gas producer/explorer.
• Challenger are best known these days for their offshore Uruguay licence which they have been working on since 2020 – they are proving up the potential for between 1 and 2 billion barrels of oil.
• Long term holders know them for Predator in the Bahamas.
• During that time they took over the Columbus assets in Trinidad and Suriname, and are running them at a small profit.
Eytan joins me now for an comprehensive operational update, 46 minutes long, in which he answers both our questions and several from retail investors who hold the stock.
What did we learn?
* That Uruquay may be one of the the last great undiscovered sources of oil.
* Uruquay's basin geology mirrors that of Namibia, where the world's largest ever oil discovery was made recently.
* Challenger got in early during Covid and hold a licence with great potential.
* Other majors and super majors hold all the surrounding licences now.
* A joint 3-D seismic work programme is currently being organised for the basin.
* Challenger have a farm-out process underway to pay for the seismic and hopefully a carry on the costs of a deep water appraisal drill.
Perhaps most notably we learned that Eytan lost significant sums of his own money on the Perserverence drill, which was high risk, high reward E&P exploration. He then raised money to pay off the 60+ Perserverence well creditors. And that he has backed the Uruquay licence with his own money once again. Eytan says he is aligned with shareholders and shares their pain at the low share price.
Challenger Energy (CEG)