Member Info for adoubleuk

Bobbilicious,

"a) Up to one month.
b) One month to a year
c) Anything over a year"

Is there a Rip Van Winkle category of shareholder?

Jay_85

" or we all find out are actually living in the matrix"

Hang about. In what way is that a risk factor? In some ways, I feel that by investing in AIM companies it's actually a positive hint that I AM living in the matrix. Wouldn't make much sense, otherwise.

JayKay,

"But to mention ‘in the worst case scenario, Hurricane could lose the Aoka Mizu or accidentally cause a giant oil spill.’ in an article titled ‘Why I think the Hurricane Energy share price could fall off a cliff’ is sensationalism at its absolute worst…"

Yup.

I think I might submit an article for publication by the Motley Idiot with the title "Why I think the BP share price could fall off a cliff". Citing that they might 'lose' the Glen Lyon or 'accidentally cause a giant oil spill'.

(No hang on, they did that nine years ago, but it wasn't an FPSO they lost.)

Anyway, doesn't matter. Insert any oil company name, and the name of one of their FPSO's. Same applies.

Help! Let's all stop investing in O&G, people! It's risky!

Nigwit,

I'm late joining in this thread due tohaving been occupied doing more njoyable (some EXTREMELY) risky things over the weekend.

You wrote:

"The MF article is badly-written and alarmist but the catastrophic scenarios it describes are not unprecedented. Long term holders will recall that only last summer the Transocean Paul B.Loyd JR rig was delayed in its operations for Hurricane whilst it attended to an emergency in the north sea."

In my opinion, you're using the same sort of negative-slant hyperbole as that fool wrote in his Motley Idiot article. By combining the word 'catastrophe' and mention of the PBLJ hold-up in the same paragraph. Was the rig being delayed a 'catastrophic' event for Hurricane? No, it wasn't. And also it was due to no 'fault' of Hurricane's management.

Hey! We've now got another rig delay, with the TO Leader being in Invergordon before going out to Warwick. Due to the rig being late starting work for a third partybecause of mechanical issues last year, and that delay having a domino effect. Is it 'catastrophic? No way, José. In fact personally I'm rather happy the thing's getting a good checkup before starting work for 'us'. Because although I wouldn't dare call the Leader a 'rustbucket', it's one of a rather parson's egg generation of semisubs which I don't trust very much.

And if you can't put up with little annoyances like rig delays or the occasional equipment failure like the 'rope saga', maybe WoS O&G isn't the sort of thing you should be investing in.

I've always rather hankered after a Thorneycroft 'Mighty Antar' tank transporter tractor unit (with the Meteor engine). Just for going to the supermarket, of course.

That's interesting reading (just seen it, having been on the road most of the day).

OK Malcy confirms what myself and a couple of others have been saying. That being, bringing the entire system 'onstream' is part and parcel of 'commissioning', and thus a flare is likely to be seen.

But he also imparts news, which has obviously been fed to him by the company. That being, FoiL isn't going to ba announced until both wells have been cleaned up and checked, which will also (by implication) include some of the 'experimentation' which has been guided since ages ago: shutin pressure-buildup tests, seeing how the two wells 'talk to each other', and so on.

So contrary to my earlier feelings, I now feel it's highly likely that there will be a delay of days if not weeks between a flare first being spotted and a FoiL RNS being released. Which will no doubt result in a plethora of posts on this BB and others from those people with agendas, claiming that something's gone wrong, or that there's been a 'delay'.

Of course, taking such an approach plays nicely into the company's hands, because really, they've said the next RNS will be FoiL (other than possible corporate / financial stuff), so other than the next quarterly update (telling us stuff we already know), they've got three months before H1 is out and they have to publish anything!

Or rather, no, they've got two and a bit months, because H1 finishes at the end of June, by which time the AGM will have been held, and naturally some sort of detailed 'update' will be required for that occasion.

Which equally, it occurs to me, might be the occasion for the company to play the PR aspect to its greatest. Maybe postponing any FoiL announcement until the last minute! And then feeding it to the media bigtime.

I can see there's going to a fair old bit more sitting on hands involved for this particular PI before any serious trading can be thought about...

"They winna be doing much this weekend."

Why not? Bad weather out there? Can't say I've been looking. But yes, difficult connecting up this and that and so on if the boat's doing rock 'n roll.

Good test of the mooring system, though. But I bet they can't wait to get a bit lower in the water.

SotB, MrSmythe wasn't asking when people reckoned FoiL might be announced. ..

I was interested to see that S&S said that they consider the share valuation to be 'incorrect' (noting they didn't use the brokers' phrase 'undervalued'), and also that they 'advised' that further moves would be based upon buying into company equity. With no mention of further placements in the near future, which I find encouraging.

I have no idea whether what other posters here have been saying about CF being a big seller and representing an overhang is true or not. But if it is true, let's hope the overhang is finished with soon. One can get quite used to 'sell on news' with some AIM shares, but the current situation here seems rather absurd.

Mr Smyth,

I want to immediately preface this by stating that I'm NOT a 'production hand', but he next stage upstrem from that, so anything I write here in reply to you must be treated as opinion only.

"Primarily around what are the chances things go to pot?"

What do you mean? The reservoir suddenly losing pressure and the wells producing cottege cheese instead of oil? Or the boat sinking? Very, very, very slim, I'd suggest.

"What steps are left to do between now and FOIL (I've been following some parts i.e. cleaning out the water - if there is any - etc.)."

Commissioning the production 'plant', and I don't know what this will involve in detail. Certainly static pressure-testing will have been done in Dubai, but it hasn't yet been done with live hydrocarbons running through the system under pressure (if one discounts when the FPSO was last at work on Ettrick). But before that, final connection together of all the infrastructure subsystems, and ensuring they're 'talking to each other' properly, obeying all input commands, and so on. For instance, the wellheads have remote-control functions which will have been tested when installed. But that will have been done by the installation vessel. Now they have to be controlled from the FPSO, about 2.5 km distant, so that has to be checked.

Various subsytems will be essentially 'new', such as chemical injection, so these will have to be commissione and checked for correct functioning.

And of course, well 'cleanup'. As mentioned in earlier posts, I suspect that 'partial cleanup' may have been done when the rig (PBLJ) did the recompletions, but there will still have to be some 'completion brine' plus whatever's in the flowlines before the well (s) are flowing 100% oil with no water-cut (no water-cut was seen during testing after initial cleanup).

Also (very importantly), once oil's moving through the 'train', all metering systems and safety cutoff apparatus will have to be checked for full functionality.

As mentioned, this is a bit beyond my own speciality, but commissioning of anything which involves numerous sub-systems, be it a production plant or a drilling rig, is governed by various generalised rules. That being, ensuring that the various sub-systems are working in coordination with each other, and most importantly, if any defects are seen, they're rectified and tested again before moving onto the next step. Usually it's the last bit which takes the time.

Plus also, there's a lot of paperwork to be approved and 'signed-off'. That can take time, as well!

SIPP,

"Ak, stick to what you are good at!"

OK! :-))

In fact, I mentioned stock consolidation more as a question, rather than anything else. I once owned stock in another independent O&G company where there was a 10:1 consolidation. The only difference I could see was that it had a slight 'smoothing' effect, though it wasn't a terribly volatile share anyway.

Sure, I'm far away from my own sphere of expertise here. But I suspect that if a share is consolidated by 10:1 meaning the base value per share increases tenfold, the 'bots' can't jiggle the share price around in so many tiny increments, so overall, trading becomes slightly more 'orderly'.

But that's just a guess on my part. I'd be interested to read the views of anyone here who properly knows about such stuff, though.

kaytom,

"Your 50 : 1 would give a current share price of £24.50... Ridiculous"

Yes, my bad! Try 5 to 1!

SIPP,

" And I would not be surprised if all of that is timed to coincide on or before the AGM in June."

Hmm. We'll have to wait and see! :-)

It's something I occasionally mention every few months or so, but it'd be interesting to see if a share consolidation, maybe 50 to 1, also takes place, either before or after the upmarket move.

A move upmarket is I feel highly likely at some point, but it's never been a 'promise' by the company, who've always ringfenced it with words like 'under consideration' and 'being studied'. However, that being said, the BoD comprises a number of members who aren't directly concerned with Operations, plus the services of companies like Boudica have been obtained, so I feel fairly sure that such studies have been quietly taking place in the background in parallel with the 'exciting' stuff like getting EPS into place, which of course has hogged the limelight.

' pen and pencil'

pen and paper, of course!

SlowRoll,

" Is the oil shut off down the well where it's nice and warm?"

Yes.

JayKay,

"Joking aside, do we know if the flowlines from manifold to buoy are empty or full of fluid, and if fluid is it seawater? "

No, we (I) don't know, but a guess the flowlines will contain water (maybe seawater, maybe fresh), treated with corrosion inhibitor and biocide.

"The wells may (or may not) have already been cleaned up as part of the completion work by the rig last year, we just don't know..."

Although JayKay is a self-professed 'Noilby' (indeed I think it was he who invented that name), I tend to agree with him. Partially. Wellwell's question was:

" As for clean up, as the wells are naturally fractured what do we expect in this regard?"

And it's an interesting question. SiPP's quotations were from stuff published prior to final completion by the PBLJ, and subsequent to that, we learned that final 'cleanup' would involve the FPSO. But study of the completions drew me to the conclusion that the wells (or rather the ESP's) could be tested (flowed) without actually bringing oil to surface, which is why no flaring was involved.

Doing some really quick calculations (simple calculator, pen and pencil, and a formula retrieved from memory), the fluid volume of the production tubing and the horizontal O/H sections of each well is of the order of 300 bbl, so actually displacing that volume at minimum 6000 bbl/day won't take long.

BUT. In the horizontal, this will not be 'plug flow', so it will take a while to get to flowing 100% oil, especially as there could be completion brine remaining lowside and near-wellbore.

Either way, 'cleanup' shouldn't take more than a day per well, and I'd beg to disagree with 'fitguy' in reckoning both wells will be cleaned up before a FoiL announcement is made. Though I could be wrong, of course.

Lady Sonia,

"I accept that it's not massively important in the grand scheme of things, but it could give rise to premature indication of FOIL.

My train of thought is:

Commissioning activity causes flaring
->Nearby vessel/rig observes this
-->Someone Posts on a BB
--->SP shoots up few days/weeks prematurely"

This has been discussed before, but now the company's entering into the commissioning phase, it's worthwhile continuing.

I think that the scenario you describe is almost inevitable, because (my opinion only) the final stages of commissioning will involve running live hydrocarbons from the wells through the production train, which will possibly include flaring of gas, prior to final 'sign-off'.

Some people I know and communicate with have already queried Hurricane IR on the subject, but replies received are a bit equivocal as to what exactly constitutes 'First Oil', and what sort of delay there will be between the first well being opened and flowing and a FoiL announcement being made via RNS. Without any specific evidence to support this, I personally suspect it will be a matter of 24 hours or so, maybe a bit more. But that's just a personal ballpark hunch, nothing more.

However, a flare being sighed at first is not guaranteed. Because part of the commissioning process will also involve switching power production over to the gas turbines, and ensuring that that particular system is functioning OK, so initially there may not be 'spare' gas to be burned off. I don't know.

Either way, though, there will be hydrocarbons flowing before FoiL is 'officially' announced. But (again opinion only), it'll be a maximum of a few days, not weeks.

Hurricane has a very good historic record of keeping a very tight rein on information being 'leaked' from the field. But it seems likely there may be some 'outward sign' (like a flare) not going unnoticed before FoiL is announced. What this may do to the SP, I haven't a clue. This share sometimes behaves quite illogically relative to news. But it may be a trading opportunity... For those inclined to trade, of course.

Wulbert,

"Using your metric, someone like Adoubleuk, who has managed (by his own assertion) to regain his initial investment pot, and is now on a "free carry", is now holding HUR shares at an average price of 0p and a profit of infinity %."

That's a nice thought, but it just goes to prove that the metric is false. Because obviously if I was showing a profit of infinity %, the value of my holding would be infinite, making me the wealthiest man in the universe and all surrounding universes, which unfortunately isn't the case. Though at the same time, and as you say, my shares would be worth nothing, making me the poorest of all Hurricane shareholders, which luckily isn't the case, either!

The thing being, 'thestreet' keeps banging on with little truisms like 'buy low, sell high', as though he'd just discovered the holy grail, and nobody else knew about such stuff. Which makess himself look a bit daft, not the rest of us.

The fact is, not many PI's are interested in how much others hold, now when they trade and at what levels. Actually I think a lot of people find such details rather ungentlemanly, except perhaps when discussed in private conversation.

His strategy of totting up small percentages is a common one, but it involves a lot of work, and generally being able to deal in large volumes. It's what the 'bots' are doing every millisecond. But for mere mortals like myself, especially (like myself) for whom the time taken for a sell trade to find its way back to my accounts in the form of cash can be measured in hours if not days, such a strategy is unworkable, unless one has a sizeable cash buffer to cover a series of trades in quick succession. And not many people have that, other than the 'bots'. Plus if one's in such a fortunate and unlikely position, why mess around with small percentages anyway?

The bottom line being, it may sound impressive to be able to say that one's covered one's initial investment like I did a few years ago, but it isn't such a big deal, really. Because since then, I've also had to eat, drink, buy diesel for the car, support my cigarette habit, and so on. So it hasn't made me 'rich'.

mrmisterfox,

"Sorry if it was a dumb question.."

We have a saying in the oilfield that the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked.

On reading here that some people were seeing the FPSO on the move again, I went to Marine Traffic, because naturally such a state of affairs would be startling and very worrying indeed.

Like others, I'd put it down to incorrect data, which MT displays, sometimes. Right now the site seems to be experiencing problems: for instance I had trouble signing in, and then couldn't get it to display vessel details with 'past track', and so on. And trying a second time, it shows the AM as moored, whereas a few minutes earlier it showed underway at 5kt, but yet in the same place!

Just a glitch. Probably best not to look at MT for a while now, 'cos it can be a source of grey hairs! The FPSO's on station, the rig will be in Invergordon for a while, so we'll learn nothing from 'shipwatching' for now...